Loved by the Light
by Lachenna
Summary: Crowned Clown and Mugen would do practically anything to give their accommodators that thing they want most: a child of their own. Their newest mission will provide them the opportunity to do just that. Semi-AU. Mpreg. AllenxKanda. Lemons.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I've decided I need to post some of my backlog of unfinished stories, and this is one of them. This story won't be updated with any sort of regularity; instead of being on a schedule like my main stories, it will be updated whenever I feel like it. Basically, I'll update it based on how it's received. If you like it, please review it; I'm more likely to work on this story and update it if I feel like people want to read it.

To warn you right off the bat, this story is going to get a little dark. But everything will work out and no one dies. The only other things you need to be warned about are the lemons and mpreg. ;)

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It had been a long mission so far, but the three exorcists had recovered the first of the Innocence fragments they'd been sent to retrieve. Sort of. The fragment in question was inside a small sculpture that they were unable to break, forcing them to lug the heavy stone chunk around with them while they searched for the next fragment. Then came the akuma attack, and Allen was injured. He insisted that his twisted ankle wasn't worth sidelining him over, but it was decided that he would spend the rest of the day at the inn, babysitting the one fragment that they had already found.

And that's where he was now, lying in bed and pouting about being left out. Normally he would have followed them against their wishes - he was a general now, and as such, he could do what he wanted - but despite his words to the contrary, his ankle hurt. Bad. He didn't think he'd even be able to walk down the hall to the bathroom if he had to go.

The white haired teenager eventually gave up on the pouting and fell into a fitful sleep. And with the human asleep, that's when the Innocence chose to wake up. And it turned out that there wasn't just one fragment in the sculpture they had recovered, there were two.

Crowned Clown laughed as he listened to the two new Innocence fragments lament over not being able to find their accommodators. It was an interesting change of pace. Newcomers usually disliked getting found and wanted to go back to playing.

These two did not appreciate his laughter. "You can shut up. You're a parasite-type; you've been with your host since before he was born. You don't remember what having to wait for the right human to come around is like."

"You could do the same thing I did, you know."

The female fragment gasped in shock at what Crowned Clown was implying. "Are you actually saying that you attached to his mother and made her get pregnant?"

Crowned Clown's smirk was audible. The second fragment responded with a snort of derision. "We could never do that. It's too risky. There's no way to guarantee that the baby would make it to the Order and become an exorcist."

A somber silence fell, but Crowned Clown brushed it off. "Whatever. It was just a suggestion. You don't have to take it."

"But there is a way." The female fragment was giving the suggestion serious thought. "If one of the parents was already an exorcist, then they'd recognize their child as having a parasitic Innocence."

Her companion snorted at her, but she kept talking, growing more excited as she did. "That would really be the best way to do it anyway. If my host had an exorcist as a parent, she'd be better prepared for her destiny. She'd know what to expect and wouldn't resent me for possessing her."

She paused to sigh longingly at Crowned Clown. "You're so lucky you don't have that problem. It must be nice to have your host actually like you."

He laughed. "Yeah, that is pretty great."

"You're being ridiculous, Artemis." The male fragment huffed at his optimistic companion. "How would you even go about doing it? A female exorcist would abort any pregnancy you caused; she can't perform her duties if she's with child. And it wouldn't be any different if you used a male. Unless he's already married-"

He paused as Crowned Clown butt in, "There aren't any married exorcists right now."

"-There's no way of predicting whether or not he'd stay with a woman you made him knock up."

Artemis was silent. She wanted to argue with her brother, but he had a point.

"What if you used my host?"

The two fragments gaped at Crowned Clown's suggestion. The male found his voice first. "What do you mean?"

Artemis snorted and mentally head slapped him for being stupid. "A parasite-type exorcist knows that there's a possibility his child will also be a parasite-type. He wouldn't abandon a woman he impregnated; it would be too risky."

This time it was the male fragment who was momentarily speechless. "Fine. Suppose that's true. Is this guy really going to let us use his host like that? Will he actually let the kid be with a woman just so that we can have hosts?"

"Actually, I was suggesting that you use him as the woman in this scenario."

The two fragments were beyond stunned by Crowned Clown's words. He took their silence as permission to explain his idea. "I realize he's male, but if you work together, it's within your power to give him the organs he needs for carrying children. He won't be able to abort the babies; they'll have to investigate the cause of his pregnancy first, and the higher ups won't let him when they find out that it's the work of Innocence."

Artemis was intrigued. "Will he actually want the babies? Or will they be abandoned as soon as they're born?"

"Trust me, he'll want the babies." Crowned Clown smiled to himself as he caught a piece of Allen's dream. The kid must have subconsciously picked up snippets of their conversation as he was currently imagining himself taking care of a child. "Even if he didn't, it'd be known before they're born that they're accommodators, which is what you wanted in the first place, right?"

The male fragment was unconvinced. "And how exactly are we supposed to get him pregnant? In case you didn't know, he still has to have sex for this to work. Do you really plan to manipulate him into letting another man take him anally?"

Crowned Clown laughed. "That's for me to know and you to find out."

Artemis mentally punched him in the shoulder. "You already have the guy picked out, don't you?"

"Maybe~." Crowned Clown smirked playfully, but he sobered up quickly at the thought of Mugen and her accommodator. "Though I probably should make sure his Innocence is on board with this first. She can be a little finicky, and I don't want her mad at me for doing this without her permission."

"I knew it. This was too good to be true." The male fragment pouted sullenly.

Crowned Clown gave a snort of annoyance. "If you're going to be this pessimistic about everything, being constantly stuck with you for the next few years is going to suck."

"Hey!"

" _As I was saying_ , Mugen will be pissed if I don't ask her first, but we've discussed this before, and I know she'll agree to it."

While the male fragment felt stupid, Artemis was thinking hard about what Crowned Clown had said. "Wait. When you say that you've discussed this before, you don't mean-"

"I do."

"Really? You're going to manipulate your host into sleeping with her gay accommodator?"

Crowned Clown snorted. "Given that they do it all the time, there won't be much manipulation involved."

"Oh."

"So that's what you get out of this." The revelation that Allen was gay was the missing piece of the puzzle for the male fragment. "I was wondering why you would volunteer to put your host's body through all that and have him be out of commission for months. You want to give your gay host a baby."

Crowned Clown scoffed at the accusatory tone. "Is it wrong of me to want to give my host the family he so desperately wishes for?"

The conversation died when the door was thrown open with a bang. A bag was tossed roughly inside, and then Kanda turned back to the hallway and snarled orders at the finders waiting there. Without waiting for a response, the samurai slammed the door. He stalked to the empty bed and threw himself down on it, muttering curses under his breath the entire time.

The new male fragment couldn't help commenting sarcastically about Kanda's behavior. "He's pleasant."

"Well, I see the new kids are finally awake." Mugen spoke from where she'd been leaned against the bedside table. "Have you been having fun calming them down, Crowned Clown?"

He grimaced; she only used his full name when she was mocking him. "Actually, _Mugen_ , we were having a rather interesting discussion about finding accommodators."

She groaned at him, but before she could say anything, Artemis butt in. "Wait. You're Mugen? We were just talking about you."

The crystallized sword mentally glared at Crowned Clown. "What exactly did he say about me?"

"Hold on a second! I-"

"Hush, Chowderhead, I was talking to them."

While Crowned Clown pouted at Mugen's nickname for him, Artemis spoke hesitantly, choosing her words carefully in order to calm Mugen down. "He really didn't say much; just that you get angry at him easily and that your accommodator is gay."

Mugen focused her attention back on Crowned Clown. "Why did you tell them my Yuu is gay?!"

He balked at her tone. "I already told you, we were talking about finding accommodators. They were complaining about not being able to find theirs, and we-"

"Wait! You mean they're interested?!" Mugen briefly lost herself in excitement. "You actually found someone willing to help us impregnate Allen?"

Crowned Clown raised a metaphorical eyebrow at her. "What's with that reaction? Aren't you going to call me an idiot?"

She snorted. "I didn't feel the need to state the obvious." Back to her usual composed self, Mugen focused on the new fragments. "Are you really interested, or is he falling victim to wishful thinking?"

The female fragment responded with a resounding "yes!" as the male hedged. "I don't know..."

Hearing his uncertainty, Artemis huffed at her companion. "What's wrong _now,_ Apollo?"

"Two things, actually." He stared at Crowned Clown and Mugen. "First of all, you two are more powerful alone than the two of us are together. You're more than capable of doing this without us. What exactly do you need us for?"

Crowned Clown sighed. "Without you, there's no guarantee that the baby will be an accommodator. If it's not, the higher ups will either force Allen to abort the baby or they will take it from him as soon as it's born. Either way, he'll commit suicide within the month, and we can't let that happen."

The silence that followed his words was tense; none of the Innocence fragments liked the thought of an accommodator committing suicide. Artemis was quick to change the subject. "And what's your other problem, Apollo?"

"Him." At that one word, the other fragments all focused on the bed where Kanda was sleeping. "I don't think I could stand having that guy be the father of my host."

Crowned Clown gave Mugen a look before he smirked at her. "It appears your Yuu made his usual awful first impression. What are you going to do about it?"

She snorted at his teasing tone. "Oh, I'm not going to do anything, Chowderhead. You are."

"Huh?"

"Give your host a nightmare."

"What? No way am I doing that! I won't hurt my precious Allen!"

Mugen rolled her eyes. "You know as well as I do that Allen is my Yuu's weakness. If you give him a nightmare, it'll wake Yuu up and make him reveal his sweet side."

Apollo snorted. "Like that guy has a sweet side."

Crowned Clown and Mugen both glared at him for interrupting before turning back to each other. Crowned Clown caved with a sigh. "Fine. I'll wake Allen up. But I'm not giving him a nightmare."

Hearing Allen whimper woke Kanda, who had always been a light sleeper, immediately. "What's wrong, Moyashi?"

"I have to pee."

The samurai snorted at the childish whine and rolled back over. "Che. Then go to the bathroom. Baka."

Allen whimpered again when he jostled his ankle while moving to sit on the edge of the bed. "Can't. I can't walk."

Kanda was out of bed the second the admission was out of the Moyashi's mouth. He stood over the teen and glared down at him. "So you _did_ hurt your ankle."

White hair bobbed as the teen nodded. "Yeah."

"Che. Baka Moyashi. You should have said something." The samurai tousled the boy's hair and then he walked away.

The light was turned on and Kanda began rooting through his bag. "Yuuuuu! What are you doing? I have to pee!"

"Che. Then either hold it or wet the bed. Your choice." The two young men simultaneously stuck their tongues out at each other.

Then Kanda was kneeling at Allen's feet. He scowled at the brat as he slid off the boy's right boot. "Idiot. If your ankle hurt, you shouldn't have been sleeping with your boots on."

Allen winced as the movement of the boot jostled his ankle again. "Couldn't get it - _ah!_ \- off. It - _unnn!_ \- hurt too much."

The sock swiftly followed the boot, and Kanda began feeling the bruised and swollen joint for signs that anything was broken. "Can you wiggle your toes?"

The teen bit back another whimper as he complied, the slight movement of the digits causing pain to shoot through his ankle. Kanda kissed the injured ankle as gently as he could. "Sorry, but I had to make you do it."

The samurai picked up the bandage roll he'd grabbed, and began wrapping Allen's ankle. "Nothing appears to be broken. It's probably just a sprain. Knowing you, you'll be up and walking around on it in the morning, even though you should take it easy for a couple days."

They stuck their tongues out at each other again as Kanda finished. Before Allen could get to his feet, the samurai had him in his arms. The white haired teen protested being carried bridal style to the bathroom, but he gave up quickly when Kanda began reminding him how much he had to pee.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This was clearly the most liked of my new stories, so I bet you're all excited for more. I actually have quite a bit of this story already written, I've just had writer's block for quite a long time. I was originally waiting to post it until I'd actually finished the story, to avoid having to put it on hiatus, but you all already know that I've changed my mind on that. ;) Anyway, I've decided that I'll be posting new chapters of this story on the first Thursday of the month. With any luck, I'll finish writing it before I run out of chapters to post.

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In the silence that followed the humans' exit, Mugen spoke to the new fragments. "See, my Yuu really is a sweet boy. He just has some anger issues."

Apollo remained unconvinced. "So he's nice to his lover, big deal. He probably only does it to get laid. I bet-"

His sentence was cut off by a stream of loud curse words coming from the bathroom. When the yelling died down, he turned back to Mugen, smiling as though the swearing proved his point. "See?"

Mugen smirked at him. "That was Allen."

The two new fragments laughed at her. There was no way that the innocent white haired boy was the one swearing like a sailor.

Ignoring them, Mugen called out to Crowned Clown. "Yo, Chowderhead! What's got Allen so pissed off?"

"Nothing. Just the usual nonsense that happens when those two stubborn idiots get together." Crowned Clown spoke as the pair reentered the room, Allen struggling in Kanda's arms. "A finder came into the bathroom, so Allen started yelling and cussing at Kanda. You know the drill."

Mugen snorted at him. "They may be stubborn idiots, but at least they're smart enough to know to keep their relationship hidden."

Kanda placed Allen down on his bed, rearranging the pillows so that the boy's injured right ankle was propped up. He moved towards his own bed, but was stopped by a tugging on his shirt. His annoyed question of "what's wrong now?" went unsaid as he caught the look on Allen's face.

Sitting carefully on the mattress, the samurai placed a chaste kiss on his Moyashi's coral lips, loving the lust filled gaze the boy was giving him. "We can't, Moyashi. You're injured."

The whimper Allen gave in response made it that much harder for him to resist the boy. "Besides, Lenalee's in the room next door. We can't risk her overhearing us."

"I'll be quiet." Allen grabbed Kanda's collar and pulled him in for another kiss, shoving his tongue roughly into the older boy's mouth. The samurai caved, unable to resist when his Moyashi initiated things.

The four Innocence fragments watched the young men deepen their kiss, but then a voice from the next room called out, "You may want to stop them."

Having forgotten she was nearby, Crowned Clown and Mugen were both startled by the sound of the Dark Boots' voice. Artemis addressed her. "What do you mean?"

The Dark Boots snorted at the stupid question. "One: my accommodator is awake and can hear them. And two: for what you lot are planning to work, those two can't have sex until you're done creating Allen's womb."

The fragments all froze briefly before Crowned Clown sprang into action. "I'm sorry for this, Allen." Focusing his energy, he sent a short blast down to the boy's injured ankle.

Allen broke the kiss to bite back a scream at the pain that suddenly filled his ankle. Kanda was startled by the sudden action, but one look at the boy's pain filled face told him what had happened. He kissed away a few spilled tears before he pushed himself off the bed. "Told you so."

The Moyashi didn't respond to the taunt, and that worried Kanda. He quickly moved down to the boy's feet and reexamined the injured ankle. Allen whimpered and whined as the joint was unwrapped. The bruises were darker than they were when it was wrapped earlier. "Sorry, Moyashi. Looks like I was wrong. It's broken."

Allen covered his face with a pillow and began to cry uncontrollably. This was not what he wanted right now. A broken ankle put him off missions for weeks as he healed and recuperated. And that's if he was lucky. A major break could mean being benched for so long that he would have to relearn how to walk. How was he supposed to keep walking if he literally couldn't walk?

The Innocence fragments all stared at Crowned Clown in horror. The Dark Boots found her voice first. "Did you just _break his ankle_ to stop them from having sex?"

"No." Seeing that the others didn't believe him, he explained further. "It was already broken. I just made it hurt so much that he couldn't ignore it anymore."

The others just continued to stare at him. He rolled his eyes at them. "What? We've spent the evening talking about getting him knocked up. A broken ankle is minor compared to that. And like I said: it was already broken. He was going to be benched anyway."

A furious knocking on the door had Crowned Clown shutting up and Allen attempting to mask his sobs. Kanda rolled his eyes at the Moyashi, and hurried to the door to make the infernal racket stop. "What?"

Lenalee scowled at the way Kanda growled at her. "There's no need for that tone, Kanda. I heard Allen scream. What's wro- oh."

The words trailed off as Kanda opened the door the rest of the way and she caught sight of Allen. The vibrant bruises on his ankle were impossible to miss with the way it was propped up. The Chinese woman rushed to his side. She pulled the pillow off his face to keep him from smothering himself, and fell to her knees beside the bed. "Oh Allen, why didn't you say anything?"

Not letting him respond, she spent the next ten minutes alternating between chewing him out and fawning over his injury. When she finally calmed down, Kanda pulled her to her feet and pushed her towards the door. "Go call your psycho brother. The Moyashi needs more medical attention than he can get here. Ask for permission to open an ark gate so we can get the brat home."

The order snapped her back into her right mind and she dashed from the room. "On it!"

While Kanda moved around the room packing up the Moyashi's stuff, Mugen addressed the newcomers. "We're out of time. If you want to do this, you have to do it now. Once Allen is taken back to headquarters it'll be too late."

.x.x.

My ankle was very broken. The doctors were all amazed that I had been able to hide the injury for as long as I had. I spent four weeks in the infirmary. Four fucking weeks.

The first was with my ankle in traction, and I was so hopped up on pain medication that I literally couldn't move. The nurses had to feed me like I was a baby. It was beyond mortifying. At least Kanda was out on missions and didn't see me like that.

The second week was both better and worse. They'd taken me out of traction and off the paralyzing medication, but I was still confined to my bed. They wouldn't even let me get up to use the bathroom. So while I was once again able to eat real foods and feed myself, the nurses still had to change my bedpan.

I was finally given a pair of crutches starting with that third week. I wasn't allowed to go any farther than the bathroom, but that short distance felt like miles. In both the good sense and the bad sense. It was a long, painful distance to walk when I was still figuring out how to use the crutches, but on the other hand, I was finally at least somewhat free of that awful bed.

The beginning of the fifth week of my recovery saw me discharged from the infirmary, though still stuck with the annoying crutches. The first place I went was the cafeteria. I missed the noise and the gossip. Even with my friends visiting me constantly, the infirmary was much too quiet.

Jerry was overjoyed to see me up and about. He came out of the kitchen and hugged me so hard that I dropped my crutches. I tried to pick them up myself, but Lenalee was at my side helping me before I could even bend over.

She led me to the table where Kanda was sitting. I had to push her away when she tried to help me sit down. "Thanks Lena, but I need to do this myself. I won't recover properly if you do everything for me."

She pouted at me and then turned to Kanda. He rolled his eyes at her. "Don't look at me. I agree with the Moyashi on this. There's no need for you to baby the brat."

"My name's Allen, Bakanda!"

Her pout never faded as she watched me struggle to maneuver my crutches and sit down, but she kept her hands to herself. Once I was situated, I smiled gently at her and gestured for her to sit beside me. "Sorry if I was rude; I wasn't trying to push you away. I will need your help while I'm like this, but it needs to be when I ask for it, or things like with Jerry earlier, not all the time with everything, ok?"

Lenalee's pout turned back into a smile when I admitted to needing her help. I didn't really want it, but if telling her that I did would make her happy then I would say it. She squeezed my shoulders gently. "Thank you."

Kanda rolled his eyes at us and went back to his soba. Jerry's helpers brought out food for me and Lenalee, and I dug in. Eating in the cafeteria was so much nicer than in that bed in the infirmary.

"So, it's been a month. Will you _finally_ tell me how the rest of that mission went?"

Lenalee and Kanda shared that same look that they always got whenever that mission was mentioned. It was beyond aggravating that they wouldn't talk about it. But this time Lenalee sighed and set down her fork. "The Innocence was gone."

Those words scared me. Had my injury made them lose the second Innocence? "What do you mean by 'gone'?"

"That's the thing, we don't know." Lenalee's voice was really quiet. "We collected the second fragment, and returned home. But when we took the statue with the first Innocence to Hevlaska, she said it wasn't there any more. Somewhere between us finding it and getting it back here, the Innocence left it."

I blinked at her. "And Hevlaska doesn't have any idea where it went?"

Lenalee's chest length green hair bounced as she shook her head. "None at all."

"That's so weird. Innocence doesn't just disappear. I'm-"

My words were cut off by the meat bun that was shoved into my mouth. Kanda was glaring daggers at me. "Moyashi. If you try to take the blame for losing the Innocence, a broken ankle is going to be the least of your problems, got it?"

I nodded around my mouthful of food. The last thing I wanted to do was piss Kanda off. I was finally out of the infirmary, and it had been four weeks since we had last been together. I didn't want him to refuse me tonight because I angered him over something stupid.

.x.x.

It was another two weeks before I was able to ditch the crutches. The plaster cast on my ankle was removed and replaced with a removable splint that would support my ankle when I walked. Of course, that was also when the physical therapy started. Those strengthening exercises were so awful that I almost wanted to go back to not being allowed to move. But I wanted to be able to walk again so badly that I powered through.

My real motivation was a little less pure. Kanda had told me point blank that he wasn't going to have sex with me again until I could walk without the crutches. And he had stuck to that; he didn't even let _me_ jerk _him_ off. But our first night together after those six weeks apart was amazing, and it almost made up for that. I knew that if I tried to give up on the physical therapy then Kanda would go back to withholding sex, and I did not want to go through _that_ again.

So I worked hard. I pushed myself just far enough to regain my strength and flexibility without doing harm to my recovering ankle.

After two weeks of physical therapy, I began throwing up all the time. It wasn't a stomach bug, I felt fine (not counting the pain my ankle was in); the only thing wrong with me was that I was throwing up.

When a week passed and the vomiting didn't stop, the doctors ordered me to cut back on the physical therapy. They surmised that I was working too hard and my body couldn't keep up with it. So I stopped doing my exercises and did nothing to strengthen my ankle other than continue to walk with the splint on.

But when another week went by and I was still throwing up, Komui decided that something was wrong and put me through an entire physical work up. Whatever results he got freaked him out, but I couldn't get him to tell me what they were. Instead, I was dragged down to Hevlaska. She did her exam and put me down gently. "You are right, Komui. The Innocence that went missing ten weeks ago is residing safely within Allen's body."

I gaped at her and Komui. The missing Innocence was inside me? "How is that possible?"

Komui gave me a look. Obviously, the answer to my question was the answer to the question of what was making me sick. But he couldn't say it. Whatever it was was bad news.

"You're pregnant, Allen." Hevlaska's words made my heart stop.

"And by 'pregnant' you mean...?" My question went unanswered; the silence telling me that the word meant exactly what I thought it did. "But I'm a man! I can't have a baby!"

I managed to keep the freak out in as they explained that what they were telling me was true. It was hard to focus on what they were saying as they described what was going to happen to my body over the next eight months. I desperately needed to talk to Kanda, and so I fled from Hevlaska's chamber the first chance I got.

.x.x.

Allen sprinted to Kanda's room. Or he would have sprinted if it weren't for the splint on his still healing ankle. Instead, he hobbled as quickly as he could.

Kanda was startled from his meditation when his bedroom door was suddenly flung open. The Moyashi was standing in the doorway with a huge grin on his face. The young man's silver eyes sparkled as he practically bounced with joy.

Allen closed and locked the door, throwing himself into Kanda's lap. He wrapped his legs around the samurai's waist and locked lips with the Japanese young man. He could barely contain himself.

The samurai broke the kiss and narrowed his eyes at his lover. "What's got you so happy? I thought you were supposed to be getting tests done to figure out what's making you sick."

Time itself seemed to stop with Allen's next words. "I'm pregnant."

Kanda stared at the white haired young man. If this was a joke, it was just plain cruel. He had once, drunkenly, told the Moyashi that he wished the teen was a woman who could bear his children. And while he didn't actually want his lover to become female, Kanda did wish that they could have kids. The Moyashi joking that he was pregnant was not funny in the slightest.

Allen's grin never faltered at the silent reaction, having correctly guessed his lover's train of thought. "Remember that Innocence fragment that went missing on our last mission? Well, it merged with my body and created a womb inside me. It's using me to make its host."

"So you really are...?" Kanda gaped at the teen in his lap, unable to finish his thought.

"We're going to have a baby, Yuu!"

As soon as the words were out, they locked lips. The kiss remained unbroken as Kanda stood with the Moyashi still wrapped around him, and carried the boy to the bed.

The four Innocence fragments looked on as the couple celebrated the good news the only way they knew how: with sex. Crowned Clown smirked at the stunned silence the two new fragments were giving off. "Told you he'd want the babies."

Apollo sighed. "All this proves is that he wants _a_ baby. How's he going to react when he finds out it's twins?"

His pessimistic remark earned him a mental slap from Artemis. "Just shut up and enjoy this. We're finally getting accommodators. Stop ruining it with worrying over what-ifs."

He shut up, but that didn't stop him from thinking over everything that could possibly go wrong.

Time would eventually prove him right to have worried, however not even Apollo's pessimistic views could have predicted the way in which everything went wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I feel like I should explain how this story is structured before we get any further into it. Most of the chapters follow the main storyline (where Allen's pregnant), but every few chapters there will be a flashback chapter (like this one). The flashback chapters tell the story of Allen and Kanda's relationship (how they got together, etc.); these chapters are also where the lemons are. Which means that it's time for the first lemon of this story.

But before you get too excited, I need to warn you about this lemon: it's borderline non-con. It's technically consensual, but Allen does describe what happens as rape, so proceed with caution if you're squeamish about that sort of thing.

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~Five Years Earlier: Mater~

I stared numbly at the Innocence fragment in my hands. The fact that I had it meant that Kanda and I had successfully completed our mission, but it didn't feel like a victory. It felt like a failure. Even though I'd defeated the level two and achieved a new form for my Innocence, so many lives had been lost. And then there was what had happened with Lala and Guzol. I turned my attention to my mission partner with a heavy sigh, unintentionally shedding a few tears. "Kanda, what you said may be true, but I want to be a destroyer who can save people."

He scoffed at me like I expected, but instead of yelling at me for being naïve, like he'd been doing since I met him, he placed a hand on my shoulder and leaned closer to me. When he spoke, his voice was far gentler than I would have ever thought possible from the gruff Japanese man. "I can make you feel better, if you want."

I knew what that meant, but there was no way in hell that _Kanda_ actually meant it as a euphemism, and that just made me even more confused. But before I could wonder what he was really talking about, Kanda had grabbed my wrist and dragged me into one of the abandoned houses.

Following his lead, I removed my jacket and boots; it was hot in this deserted town so I didn't think anything of it. I tried to question his intentions, but the words died in my throat when, in one swift movement, he pushed me against the wall, unbuttoned my pants, and stuck his hand down the front of my boxers.

I froze as I felt his hand wrap around my shaft. To say that I was scared would be an understatement. Kanda, the man who had done nothing but curse and tease and yell at me since I met him, had a grip on the most sensitive and delicate part of my body. I was terrified of what he would do next and how he was going to hurt me.

"You're pretty big for a bean sprout." The words were completely unexpected. But before I could process that Kanda had just given me a compliment or that he had actually sounded impressed, he was pressing his lips against mine and forcing his tongue into my mouth.

I tried to stop the unwanted kiss, but that just seemed to egg him on. His mouth on mine grew so forceful that I could barely breathe. And that's when his hand moved.

I was only fifteen, I had no experience with situations like that, but I _had_ touched myself before. And that's exactly what Kanda's hand on my dick felt like. Only better. Having someone else touch me while we made out made my prior attempts at pleasuring myself seem quite pathetic.

My brain promptly forgot that it was Kanda touching me and that I didn't want to be touched. The feeling of strong, calloused fingers tightening around my sensitive shaft and a tongue tangling with my own was so wonderful that I gave in.

I moaned deeply and unashamedly as Kanda pumped my length to full hardness. And that egged him on more than trying to fight him off did. He seemed to like that I was enjoying what he was doing to me.

And then it was suddenly over. Just as it felt like my release was close, Kanda let go of me. I glared at him, but it didn't have the desired effect; I was too out of breath and my face was too flushed with pleasure to convey that I was angry.

I half expected him to laugh at me, so it was somewhat of a shock that his next move was to pull my pants the rest of the way down. I hissed as the air hit my freed erection, the warm breeze feeling cold against my overheated flesh. Kanda eyed my naked lower half for a moment, and I was too self-conscious to notice that he was sucking on his fingers as he did so.

Before I could decide if I wanted to escape or to ask him to come back, Kanda reclaimed my mouth. He kissed me just as fiercely as before, only instead of pressing me further into the wall, he pulled me away from it. Our bodies were pressed as close together as our clothes would allow, the difference in our height making me crane my neck awkwardly. I couldn't help the stray thought that said that kissing Kanda would be better in a few years when I was older and taller.

Kanda's hands moved from my hips to my bare ass, and then I felt something wet and hard push inside me. I tried to protest the painful sensation of Kanda's finger moving around inside my hole, but he wouldn't let go of my mouth. And just when I thought I was adjusting to the intrusion, he pushed another finger in. I whimpered into the rough kiss, but managed to hold in the tears. It hurt, not just physically, but emotionally, as I had no clue what he was doing to me.

I relaxed when he finally took his fingers out of my hole, but that relief was short lived. I found myself whipped around so quickly that I barely caught myself before I crashed face first into the wall.

I gasped for breath as I leaned against the cool stone. I tried to collect myself, tried to figure out how this had gone from Kanda jerking me off to him violating my ass with his fingers, but before I could make any sense of it, Kanda grabbed my hips so strongly that I was sure it would bruise. I squirmed in his grasp, but he held me securely in place as he shoved something much bigger and longer than his fingers into my hole.

This time the tears did fall. I screamed at the pain that filled my body as it was forced to accommodate whatever it was that Kanda was putting inside me.

The tears faded as the pain faded, but the sense of humiliation remained. But then there were lips gently kissing the back of my neck, and as the tickling of pleasure brought me out of my pain-filled haze, I realized that Kanda's hands had never left my hips. He was holding me close to him, his chest pressed against my back. I was severely confused by the embrace, but when I noticed that his legs were just as bare as mine, I finally realized what was happening.

The thing he had shoved inside me was his dick. Kanda had just raped me and stolen my virginity.

I wanted to be furious at him. I wanted to scream and fight him off. But before I could do any of that, he pulled out of me and thrust right back in. In doing so, he hit a spot that made my vision go white and my knees buckle as a wave of pleasure washed over me. My forearms against the stone wall and Kanda's strong hold on my hips were all that kept me from collapsing. Instead of screaming for him to stop, I ended up yelling for him to do it again.

He complied, thrusting into me over and over again, as I senselessly begged for him to take me harder. His hand returned to my shaft, pumping my erection in time with his thrusts. I was so lost in pleasure that I no longer cared that this had started without my consent.

I came without warning, spraying the wall in front of me with my seed. Through the fog of orgasm, I heard Kanda swear under his breath, and that was followed by him releasing inside of me. And as I felt the hot fluid coat my insides, that's when it hit me that he really had meant 'make you feel better' as a euphemism for sex, and I truly had consented to this.

After he pulled out of me, he turned me around and pressed me back against the wall, only this time his mouth was on my neck, sparks shooting through my body as he did something that was sure to leave a mark. I raised an eyebrow at him as I panted for breath. "That was your idea of making me feel better? Taking me from behind in the middle of nowhere?"

He hummed against my throat, but he broke away and actually answered honestly. "I was originally planning to jerk you off, but you sounded so good that I had to take it all the way."

Any anger that I had left vanished. And not just because he was giving me another hickey. I had only known Kanda for a few days, but based on the rumors I'd heard about him, I already knew him better than everyone else did. Kanda was arrogant, stubborn, and selfish. Getting carried away and going all the way fit perfectly with that. However, doing it because he was thinking of me, because he wanted to make me feel better, did not. It did, however, fit with my impression that he wasn't actually as cold as he acted; he did care, he had just been hurt a lot, something that I was quite familiar with. As different as we appeared on the surface, the only real difference between us was that I was an optimist and he was a pessimist.

I was pulled from my thoughts when Kanda yanked off my shirt; I'd been so far gone that I hadn't even noticed him undoing the buttons. Of course, what I had also failed to notice before then was that he didn't have a shirt on either. Now that mine was on the floor, we were both completely naked.

I was already half hard again from the hickeys he'd been giving me, but seeing Kanda naked pushed me the rest of the way there. His body was perfect. Jaw-dropping, drool-worthy, perfect. And if that weren't bad enough, his impressively large dick was fully erect. We'd just had sex and he was already ready for round two. And all he'd done in the meantime was give me a couple of hickeys.

Two things struck me in that moment. The first was that I was gay; it was a bit of a stupid realization given that I'd already had sex with a man, but it was life changing all the same. I was far more attracted to Kanda than I had been to any of the gorgeous women that had flocked to Master Cross. The second was that Kanda wanted me as badly as I wanted him. The look in his eyes as he watched me watch him was feral. He'd already had me, and he still wanted more. And not just for another round. Whether I wanted it or not, Kanda was now my lover.

This time I was prepared for what came next. When Kanda captured my mouth, I deepened the kiss instead of trying to fight him off. And when his hands found my hips and lifted me off the ground, sliding me up the, thankfully smooth, wall to give him access to my already abused hole, I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, bringing our bare chests closer together and helping us stay balanced.

I cried out in both pain and pleasure as he thrust into me; it was so much more enjoyable now that I knew what was going on, but it still hurt like hell.

It took Kanda longer to find my prostate the second time around, but even then, it was still so much better than the first time. I rocked my hips in time with his, only breaking our kiss when I absolutely needed to breathe. However, it was quite tempting to break away more often than that. We were face to face this time around, and that meant that I got to see just how much Kanda was enjoying what we were doing. Of course, once he did find my prostate, I no longer cared about any of that.

This time when we were done, instead of pulling out immediately, Kanda continued to hold me close; our chests moved together as we calmed our breathing, and the kisses he placed on my lips were gentle and tender. I trailed my right hand over his smooth chest, marveling not only at how perfectly toned it was, but at the fact that his horrible injury from the other day truly was completely healed.

When my fingers found a section of skin that felt different, I opened my eyes and finally noticed the strange tattoo over his heart. As I absently traced it, Kanda stopped kissing me and leaned his forehead against mine. He moved his right hand from my hip and placed it over mine, pressing my palm flat against his chest. That's when he finally spoke, and to my surprise, it was to respond to the questions rattling around in my head. "If we're still together in six months, I'll tell you about it."

I frowned, wondering what he meant by that, and that made him smirk at me. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, your ass belongs to me now, Moyashi."

My frown deepened as I sighed. At least he'd said it out loud, now I knew for certain that we were on the same page. "No, I got that part. Why six months?"

"To give your naïve ass incentive to live that long." He scoffed as he finally separated from me and there was a hint of laughter in his teasing. But when my feet hit the ground and I stumbled trying to stay upright, he caught me and helped me find my footing. "It's incredibly personal, but if we're still together in six months, I might actually trust you enough to tell you."

The sincerity in the words caught me off guard a little. "Does that mean that you actually want to be in a relationship with me?"

Kanda scoffed at me as he pulled up my pants and buttoned them for me. "Didn't we already cover this, Moyashi?"

I narrowed my eyes at him as he fixed his own pants, torn between my frustration towards his comment and wanting to watch him. "We covered that I apparently _'belong'_ to you, but not whether that meant dating or just sex."

He snorted as he bent down to pick up our shirts. "You're too emotional, Moyashi. Even if sex was all I wanted, you'd turn it into a relationship."

Taking my shirt from him and throwing it on, I frowned at the backwards way in which he'd said he wanted to date me. And that's when a different thought struck me. "Are you ever going to use my real name?"

"Che. I told you that five days ago. I'll learn your name if you can survive your first month with the Order."

He swiftly buttoned his shirt and moved to where we'd dropped our jackets. I froze at the sight of the Innocence fragment I'd left there, the afterglow from the sex fading in an instant as all my earlier worries came back.

Kanda made a face at my reaction as he picked up my jacket and the Innocence fragment and thrust them into my arms. Then he pulled on his own jacket and boots and stalked away, leaving me alone with my thoughts, a throbbing asshole, and a very serious threat. "The next time I see you, you better not still be moping over that."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: When Kanda refers to "the other exorcists" in this chapter, he is _not_ talking about the Generals, as they're out on missions; Bookman, for rather obvious reasons; or Marie and Miranda, as it will be revealed later that they've been out accompanying General Teidoll. It's also worth noting that because this is in a semi-AU, and time has passed, the group of exorcists in this story is not the same group of people as in the manga/anime.

Also, just to make it perfectly clear, six months have passed since the end of Chapter 2.

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~Present Day~

The day began like usual: I woke up in bed beside my Moyashi, propped myself up on my elbow, and watched him sleep. He looked so angelic like that, with his white hair splayed out around his head like a halo, and his beautifully pale skin just added to the illusion. His face was so innocent in sleep, with no traces of the worry lines and dark circles that he had during the day. It had been months since he smiled at anyone other than me, but that smile came back when he was sleeping.

I wished he would stay asleep. I wanted him to stay in the land of his dreams where he was happy and not return to the living hell of the waking world. I didn't want to see his once bright and sparkling silver eyes in the dull lifeless grey they were now. I didn't want to watch his spirit continue to die piece by piece every day. I wanted to undo the last six months and go back to the way things used to be. Back to when his friends were annoying and in our way, back to when everyone at the Order loved him and the worst thing anyone called him was "Bean Sprout".

But Allen didn't want that. According to him, he was just as happy now as he was back then. I didn't believe him for a second, but I played along. I was his only friend left, and if he wanted to pretend that that was good enough, then I was going to let him. Besides, it was easier to be together when I didn't have to share him. But even if things never did go back to how they were, I was going to have to share him again. In just eleven weeks, he was going to give birth to our daughter, and I would no longer have his undivided attention.

His belly was already so big and full of life. It was his only source of happiness, and the unborn baby was the light of his life. He loved her dearly. And though he often said that he'd rather have her and me than his old friends, I knew it was a lie.

It wasn't long after we discovered his pregnancy that everything went wrong. Instead of rallying around the boy that they all loved, everyone pushed him away. His unwillingness to tell people that I was the one who had knocked him up was taken as him not knowing who did it because he was sleeping around. He played along with the joke at first, but by the end of that month, it had been blown so out of proportion that everyone believed Allen was a whore, a prostitute who sold his body for money. They rejected him so completely that he no longer left his room for anything other than food, medical exams, and physical therapy for his ankle. Going out would only result in cruel teasing propositions from the finders. Jerry, Komui, and the infirmary staff seemed to be the only people smart enough to not care about the rumors, though the supervisor was probably too obsessed over the miracle male pregnancy to have even noticed them. Things had gotten so out of control that even Lenalee and the rabbit no longer hung out with Allen.

But every time I tried to protest the treatment he was receiving, every time I tried to convince him that it was time to tell everyone that I was the father of his baby, he'd shut down. I wanted-

I was snapped from the depressing thoughts when the Moyashi stirred. He smiled at me, still half asleep, and for that one moment, he was back to his usual self. "Good morning, Moyashi."

He kissed me gently. "Good morning, Yuu."

Then, as it always did, reality came crashing back to him. His eyes dimmed as he rolled away and pushed himself into a seated position. He stayed that way for a moment, staring out at nothing in particular, but then his hand came to rest on his protruding belly. And as he began rubbing and caressing the mound, some of his spirit returned. "Good morning to you too, sweetheart."

Taking the cue from him, I moved so that I was hovering over his pregnant belly. I pushed up his shirt and pressed several kisses onto his stretch marked skin. Back at the beginning of the pregnancy, I would talk to the baby and tell her all about the wonderful life she would have, but I couldn't lie to my unborn child, and I no longer believed she would have that. Outside of this little room, she was going to be a pariah, mistreated and hated because all those idiots believed that her mother was a whore.

Sitting up, I sighed at the Moyashi. "Should I even bother asking if you're going to do anything today?"

He scowled at me. "I have a doctor's appointment."

"That doesn't count."

"Then no, don't ask."

I frowned at him, but he just brushed it off. "I'm ok, Yuu, honest. I'm perfectly happy with staying in and spending my time with our daughter. There's no need for you to try to fix things, ok?"

He gave me that look I was powerless against, and I conceded. "I disagree, but as long as it's what you want, I'll keep my mouth shut."

I kissed him then climbed off the bed to get dressed. I guess that was something good about the Moyashi being an outcast, there was no one to give us grief for living together. When he didn't follow my lead, I turned back to the bed. "Aren't you coming for breakfast?"

He shook his head, and I knew that the trace of his usual self that I saw was in reaction to my half-naked state. "Komui wants to do an ultrasound this morning; I can't eat till it's over." Without waiting for prompting, he explained and returned to rubbing his belly. "I'm bigger than I should be, and he wants to find out why."

I frowned at the anxious movement of his hands as I finished pulling on my clothes. "Just say the word and I'll be there. I know you don't want that, but I still thought I'd offer. I'd drop everything in a heartbeat to help you and our child, you know that, right?"

He nodded with tears in his eyes, and that was my cue to leave. "I'll be in the training hall after breakfast. Come find me and tell me how it went, ok?"

"Ok." Anyone else might have heard a confident agreement, but I heard the fear behind it. He didn't like that I had asked him to meet me in a public place.

I ate my breakfast as quickly as possible. Being around the idiots in the cafeteria bothered me a lot more than it used to. Before the Moyashi got pregnant, everyone used to laugh and gossip about things that were pointless and trivial, and it annoyed the shit out of me. But now the only thing that they seemed capable of gossiping about was 'the resident pregnant whore'. All anyone wanted to talk about was how Allen was a 'sex-crazed slut' and how he deserved much worse than having to suffer through a pregnancy as a male.

I hated hearing Allen talked about like that. I wanted to defend my lover's honor. I wanted to slaughter every last one of them. I could let the finders get away with it; they were idiots who were going to die like flies anyway. It was the other exorcists that I couldn't stand. They were the ones who should know better. Hearing Lenalee call Allen a whore, when the boy used to be her best friend, hurt me deeply.

In a way, it was a little ironic. I was the only one who ever saw Allen's horny side, and I was the only one who still saw him as innocent and naïve.

But I couldn't appreciate the irony, so I ate as quickly as possible and ran away before I lost my temper.

Meditation was my escape from the reality I was stuck in. It always had been. Though lately it was little more than daydreaming about what I wished my life was like. But even in my fantasies, the Moyashi and I were still having a baby together. That was the one thing about all this that I would never change. I loved my daughter and couldn't wait to finally hold her in my arms.

The room grew noisy as the other exorcists came in to train, and I ditched the fantasies for actual meditation in order to block them out. I debated going somewhere less noisy, but I was stubborn and wanted the Moyashi to come to me.

The noise stopped in a heartbeat when Allen walked in the door. Everyone halted their activities to give him dirty looks. But he held his head high and ignored them. He began to walk my direction, and the farther he came into the room, the quicker the others moved to leave. By the time he reached me, we were alone.

I raised an eyebrow as I smiled at him. "How'd it go?"

My question was answered with a blank look. Whatever happened had him freaked out. I leaned forward and kissed his baby bump, knowing that would snap him out of it. When he finally spoke, he wasn't looking at me, but rather some unknown thing behind me. "Our daughter was hiding behind her sister in my last ultrasound."

It took a second for what he said to make sense. Getting to my feet, I tangled my fingers into his hair so that he would have no choice but to look me in the eyes. "Are you saying that we're having twins?"

He nodded. "They're both girls. Komui said a whole lot of technical stuff, and he's doing some sort of test, but basically there's about a twenty percent chance that they'll be identical."

Before I could react, he threw his mismatched arms around my shoulders and kissed me. The smile he gave me was almost bright, but I could still see the pain in it. "So you can stop worrying about me, Yuu. I'm going to have two daughters to love and care for. I don't need my friends."

"Yes, you do, Baka." I rolled my eyes at him, but didn't push him away. "You need them now more than ever."

The Moyashi pouted at me. _How could anyone possibly think that this innocent child is a whore?_ "Does that mean you're upset with me?"

"Why would I be upset with you?"

He buried his face in my chest, and I heard him bite back a sniffle. "For having twins."

"I'm not upset." I kissed the top of his head and began rubbing the side of his belly. "I'm... scared. One was going to be hard to handle, two is going to be impossible. Especially when everyone here hates you. There's not going to be anyone to look after them when we have to go away on missions."

My attempt to talk sense into him was blown off. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. This whole thing may have blown over by then."

"Moyashi. Everyone here thinks that you've been selling your body for money. That's not going to go away unless you do something about it."

He pushed away from me, an angry pout in his eyes. I caught his wrist, and spoke before he could start shouting at me. "Look. I told you before: I'm not going to act without your permission."

"Thank you." He kissed me and then began to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

He snorted. "To take a nap. It's been an exhausting morning."

Alone in the training hall, I took out my frustrations on some hapless training dummies. After talking to Allen just now, I was angrier than ever at his so-called friends.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thanks for the reviews!

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When my rage was back down to a manageable level, I decided to go get some lunch. Clearly a bad idea, as the first people I laid eyes on were the two I was angriest at.

Lavi and Lenalee were sitting across from each other at a table, and even though I was on the other side of the room, it was obvious from their body language that they were talking shit about Allen.

I snapped. I couldn't keep my promise to the Moyashi anymore. I had to do something.

Stalking over to their table, I slammed my hands down so hard that their dishes rattled and spilled. "Are you two idiots even aware that the Moyashi has been lying to you?!"

They exchanged a look, clearly trying to figure out what had set me off. When Lenalee turned back to me, she gave me that look of hers that said she thought I was stupid. "Of course we are. He's a liar. He hid the fact that he's a prostitute from us for years."

I grimaced at them, planting my palms on the table's surface to keep myself from reaching for Mugen. "Morons. Allen's not a prostitute. And he knows exactly who fathered his baby. But he's so scared of how you'll react to him being in a homosexual relationship that he'd rather let you treat him like crap for something that blatantly isn't true."

They just stared blankly at me, clearly not understanding what I was saying. Idiots. "Let me try this another way. If the Moyashi really were whoring around as much as everyone here thinks, wouldn't you have noticed long before he ended up pregnant? Wouldn't it have had an effect on his missions? If he really was sleeping with anyone and everyone, how is it that not one of the Order's three hundred some finders has been with him?"

The blank looks had morphed into stunned expressions, and I could tell I was starting to get through to them. "You _both_ spent the first few months after you met him throwing yourselves at him, yet nothing ever happened with him, did it?"

Before either could respond to the rhetorical question, the room around us went completely silent. I knew without looking up that the silence signaled Allen's arrival, and that did not help my mood.

The chatter picked back up when he reached Jerry's window, and Lenalee started to speak. "Ok, assume we believe all that. What-"

"I'm not done." I growled at her. She hadn't earned the right to speak yet. "You two should be ashamed of yourselves. Not even _I_ thought you would be so cruel as to ignore the Moyashi over something as moronic as this while he's pregnant."

"We're not ignoring him!"

I glared fiercely at Lenalee and she cowered away from me. I wanted to hit her so badly for saying that. "Oh really? Then how is it that Allen has nothing for his baby? He's carrying a little girl and yet you've never once dragged him out to buy dresses and toys for her."

Her violet eyes grew wide and filled with tears. I had her right where I wanted her, so I hammered in the final nail, saying the one thing that I knew would make her cry. "You didn't even know his baby is a girl, did you?"

Lenalee began to sob. But instead of yelling at me, she ran from her seat over to the table where Allen was sitting alone. She threw herself at the pregnant boy, almost knocking him over. With his mouth full of food, Allen stared down at his former best friend as she wrapped him in a tight hug and sobbed into his shoulder, and I knew he was wondering what was going on. However, with the baby hormones in his system, her tears were contagious, and it didn't take long before he was crying too. They were too far away to hear what they were saying, but it was obvious that the only words coming out of Lenalee's mouth were, "I'm sorry."

One down. One to go.

I turned towards the rabbit, who was snickering at the pair. "And you! If you had been treating the Moyashi like you should have, and been joking with him about his pregnancy, then it might not have taken six months to figure out that he's carrying twins."

The laughter died in his throat, and he briefly choked on air. "Twins?"

He seemed to get it now, but I wasn't done chewing him out. "Shouldn't you, as the Bookman apprentice, have known better than to listen to idiotic rumors? You should have seen the stupidity of them all by yourself. You know that Allen isn't anything like that. Isn't your favorite story to tell about the mission where his cluelessness almost cost you an Innocence fragment?"

The green eye staring back at me was full of stubbornness. "That may be true, but that doesn't change the fact that he got himself knocked up. He had to have been sleeping around to end up in that state."

That comment was too much, and I hit him. Not as hard as I wanted, but harder than I would have if I wasn't so pissed. "Moron. If you'd been paying attention to what I've been saying, you'd know the answer to that question. The only thing the Moyashi being pregnant proves is that he's gay, and that Innocence isn't something to be messed with."

The surprised look on his face made me hit him again. "That's right; an Innocence fragment is using Allen to create its host. One of his babies is going to be a parasite-type accommodator. You'd know that if you had just asked him about it."

I had more to say, but we were interrupted. Lenalee had convinced Allen to come over to their table, helping him carry what was left of his mountain of food. The Moyashi eyed her warily as they walked over, leery of why she was suddenly being nice to him again, and I occasionally caught him shooting looks at me, wondering what on earth I'd said to the Chinese woman.

Allen and Lavi stared awkwardly at each other for a moment, but then Lenalee kicked the redhead in the shin. He glared at her before turning back to the Moyashi. "Hello, Allen."

"Lavi." The Moyashi mimicked the redhead's awkward nod and then turned on me. "What exactly did you tell them, Yuu?"

"Relax, Allen. All I did was explain to them how stupid they were being."

Lenalee got teary again immediately. She threw her arms around Allen's shoulders. "I'm so sorry, Allen! I can't believe I acted like that! It was so stupid of me! Can you ever forgive me?"

He nodded dumbstruck at her, and she picked up babbling again. "Now, what did I miss? Tell me all about your little girl. I want to know everything! And I mean everything!"

I laughed to myself as the Moyashi began to hesitantly talk to the Chinese woman. I left the table then, heading to the counter to get food, satisfied that I'd gotten through to at least one of his friends.

"Hey Kanda! Wait up!" Lavi's voice grated on my nerves, but at least he had the sense to use my last name.

"What do you want?"

He fell in step with me and gave me that look that said he was after something. "What's going on with you? You've used Allen's first name five times today."

"So?"

The redhead rolled his eyes at me. " _So_ , when did _you_ start using his real name?"

"Che. Around the same time that I realized that I was the only friend he had left." I was using Allen's real name long before I got him pregnant; that just happened to be when I had started using it in public. But it was a convenient half-truth, allowing me to further guilt trip the redhead over his treatment of the Moyashi.

And it worked. Lavi immediately left my side and returned to the table. I watched him tousle Allen's white hair, and then I went back to getting my lunch.

Jerry had a tray of my usual soba ready for me, along with a plate of dango for me to give to Allen. He knew that I was the Moyashi's only friend, and the plate was an unspoken threat. A reminder that Jerry cooked my food and if I ever began to treat Allen like the others did then he'd stop feeding me. He'd never go through with it, as he'd never stopped feeding any of the others over this, but it was a moot point. I loved my Moyashi.

I returned to the table to find Allen talking animatedly, and the other two hanging on every word. It wasn't surprising that the Moyashi was so excited; he finally had someone new to talk about his pregnancy with.

Setting my own tray down, I made sure that the plate of dango passed right in front of the Moyashi's face as I placed it on the table. Whatever he was in the middle of saying cut off mid-sentence as he started to drool.

I took a moment to watch him dig into the sweets, and then I focused on my soba. I was a few bites in before I realized that the other two were staring, not at Allen, but at me. "What?"

They averted their gazes immediately. Lenalee blushed in embarrassment. "Sorry, it's just, we all know how picky you are. And the quality of Jerry's food has gone seriously downhill lately. So how is it that you can stand to eat that?"

I looked down at my noodles, and when I looked back up, I caught the Moyashi looking as confused as I felt. He cocked his head at Lenalee and asked the question I was thinking. "What are you talking about? Jerry's food is just as good as it's always been."

Lavi and Lenalee gave each other the same confused look that the Moyashi and I had just exchanged. Then the Chinese woman was suddenly reaching out and snagging a potsticker off of one of Allen's plates. Her eyes lit up as she ate the small piece, and then she went back to being confused. She rounded on Allen. "Why is your food good?! Mine was so bland and flavorless."

I snickered as it hit me. The chef _was_ getting his revenge on the others. "You might want to apologize to Jerry for how you've been treating Allen."

Lavi blinked at me. "What are you talking about, Kanda?"

I snorted at him. "Out of everyone here at the Order, who is Jerry's favorite person?"

When they just stared blankly at me, I pointed my chopsticks at Allen, causing the pregnant boy to turn a beautiful shade of pink.

It was silent for a moment longer before Lavi finally got it. "Wait. Are you saying that Jerry has intentionally been cooking bad food because everyone has been so mean to Allen?"

Lenalee's eyes went wide. "What?! There's no way he would do something like that!"

"Are you sure about that?" I raised an eyebrow at her. "He outright threatened to stop cooking for me if I ever abandoned the Moyashi the way you guys did."

In the tense silence that followed, Lavi did what Lenalee had done a few minutes earlier. He stole a bite off one of the Moyashi's plates. "Hey! Stop taking my food! My babies need it!"


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks for all the wonderful reviews. You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Anyway, as you probably guessed, here's some more drama with the four friends.

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At the reminder that he was pregnant, Lenalee once again buried her face in his shoulder and began crying. Allen gently pushed her away. "Come on, Lena. Knock it off already. I can't eat when you do that."

Though Lenalee knew she should feel guilty, she didn't understand why she felt as gut wrenchingly awful as she did. But her Innocence knew: she was feeding all of her frustration into her host. The Dark Boots was more than a little pissed that her accommodator had rejected her best friend over a rumor. She had assisted the others with getting Allen pregnant because she had been certain that the Chinese woman would be there to support the young man every step of the way. Having her host act the way she did embarrassed her to no end. She had spent the last several months apologizing constantly to Mugen and Crowned Clown, and now that the girl had finally realized her mistake, she was going to make sure she learned her lesson.

When Allen was done eating, Lenalee dragged him from the cafeteria to his bedroom. Kanda and Lavi followed behind, the redhead because he was curious about what Lenalee was up to, and the samurai because he didn't yet trust the other two with his Moyashi.

The Chinese woman gaped at the vacant room, the expression on her face causing Allen to blush bright red and hide behind Kanda. "Allen, what's going on?"

"I don't live here anymore." The words were barely audible, and the hiding earned him a flicked ear from Kanda.

When Allen refused to explain, Kanda stepped in. "Che. In case you haven't noticed, the finders have been bullying the Moyashi. It wasn't safe for him to stay here, so he moved to a different room."

"Oh. Right." It took a moment for the woman to regain her composure. "Where's your new room then?"

Allen continued to hide behind Kanda. He couldn't tell them that. Not without revealing his relationship with the samurai. After all, his 'new room' was Kanda's room.

Sensing the Moyashi's distress, Kanda answered the question for him. "He's not going to tell you that. It's going to take some time before he trusts you again."

Lenalee's aggressive posture relaxed immediately. "Right. Sorry. Umm... well, I wanted you to get a jacket so that we could go to town and do some baby shopping. So maybe you could go get one while we wait?"

"Sure!" Allen perked up at the mention of baby shopping. The thought of buying things for his precious daughters overpowered his fear. But he only made it two steps before the paranoia hit. "And how do I know you won't follow me?"

There was silence as everyone tried to come up with a solution to the problem. But Kanda's patience snapped quickly, and he began guiding Allen down the hall. Scared that he was going to go against his word and tell the others, Allen questioned the samurai. "What are you doing, Bakanda?"

Kanda merely rolled his eyes. "Che. I think you might have left a jacket in my room when you were there the other day, Moyashi."

The statement made Lavi even more suspicious of the samurai than he already was. Kanda never let anyone into his room. Ever. Even if he and Allen truly were friends now, he didn't think the samurai would change that. Something was going on.

Arriving at his room, Kanda planned to duck inside and grab the Moyashi's coat from the back of the chair, but the universe had different plans. As soon as the door was cracked open, Timcanpy came flying out. The golden golem immediately set its sights on its master and nestled into the pregnant young man's hair.

While Kanda glared death at the little creature, the others turned their attentions on Allen. The young man sighed at their expressions, knowing it was only a matter of moments before they put it together. He needed to do damage control if he didn't want them to figure out that Kanda was his babies' father. Pulling Timcanpy from his hair, he frowned at the golden ball. "You're such a pest, Tim."

The golem just grinned at him, making him sigh again as he turned his attention back to his maybe friends. "Fine. You win. I've been sharing Kanda's room. The bullying got so bad that I couldn't stand sleeping alone, and Kanda offered to let me stay with him."

While Lenalee bought the half-lie, Lavi remained unconvinced. Everything that had happened in the last hour, Kanda's uncharacteristically caring behavior, Allen's unusual reliance on the samurai, the use of each other's first names, combined with the fact that they were sharing a room, it all pointed to only one thing: the two of them were in a relationship. The question now was: did Kanda father Allen's twins or did their relationship start after the boy was already pregnant?

He kept his mouth shut. As frustrated as he was that they were hiding their relationship from him, it was himself that he was maddest at. He knew that he would have figured it out a lot sooner if he hadn't been so stupid as to believe those rumors. So instead of teasing the pair like he wanted to, he kept his discovery to himself. It was going to be his self-inflicted punishment for the way he treated Allen.

Allen's jacket was fetched and then the four made their way to town. Lenalee dragged the pregnant young man from store to store, pointing out everything that she thought was cute. He willingly played along, and Lavi kept them from buying too much. Kanda faked annoyance with the errand and sat outside whenever possible, but he was glad he came. It had been a long time since his Moyashi was that happy.

.x.x.

As it neared dinner time, Allen got tired. Between the twins in his belly and the broken ankle he'd suffered earlier in the year, he just didn't have the stamina to keep up with the others. He ducked out of the store to go sit with Kanda.

The samurai laughed at the exhausted way the Moyashi plopped down beside him, but before he could say anything, Allen was leaning into his shoulder, out like a light. He gave the boy a quick peck on the top of the head, and then adjusted his position so that Allen would be more comfortable.

And that's the sight that greeted Lavi when Lenalee sent him to check on Allen. Kanda was letting the young man sleep on him, and it actually looked like he enjoyed it. "Are they your babies, or did you take him in when the father rejected him?"

Lavi hadn't intended to ask the question, it just popped out; the opportunity was too perfect. Kanda's only reaction was to look calmly up at him. "I promised Allen that I wouldn't tell you that."

At first, the redhead was offended, but it took him less than a second to figure out that the only reason why Allen would make Kanda promise such a thing was if his guess was true. He joined the pair on the bench, sitting on the other side of Allen. "So you're the father then. How are you feeling about all this?"

The question was met with silence. Lavi looked over at Kanda to find him staring impassively out at the street. Thinking the samurai either hadn't heard him or hadn't understood, he rephrased the question. "It had to have been weird to find out that you got a man pregnant. Are you-?"

"Usagi, shut up." Kanda's glare was cold and full of ice. It was a harsh contrast to the warmth he'd been showing towards the sleeping Moyashi just moments earlier. "If you want answers, you're either going to have to get them from the Moyashi, or re-earn my trust. I'm not telling you anything until then."

Lavi sighed. "I guess that's fair. I haven't been the greatest friend lately."

Kanda snorted in agreement, but didn't get the chance to say the swear words he was thinking, as Lenalee chose that moment to join them. "Lavi! You were supposed to get Allen, not sit and rest!"

The redhead shrugged. "He's asleep. I didn't want to wake him."

.x.x.

With Allen asleep, it was decided that the shopping trip was over. I gathered the sleeping Moyashi in my arms, leaving the shopping bags to the others. He'd gotten heavier over the past few months, but even with the weight of the babies growing inside him, the Moyashi was still ridiculously easy to carry. Lavi left as soon as the bags were dropped off, and I knew it was because he was frustrated over not being able to ask the questions rattling around in his head.

Lenalee lingered a little longer, watching me with that look on her face that said she had something to ask, but didn't want to know the answer. "Are we ok, Kanda?"

"What do you mean?" I was pretty sure that I knew exactly what she was talking about, but I was going to make her work for it.

She sighed and sat awkwardly in a chair. "I know you're mad at me for how I was treating Allen, and that I still have a lot to do to fix that, but you're not upset over anything I did to _you_ , right?"

I looked down at Allen, who was asleep on the bed with his arms around his pregnant belly. I wondered if he'd be ok with me telling Lenalee why I was upset with her. But while I wanted her to know, I didn't want to tell her. I had promised the Moyashi that I wouldn't, and I wanted to keep that promise. There were also trust issues, like with the Usagi, and while she had never completely lost my trust like he had, Lenalee had caused me a lot of emotional pain lately, and I wasn't sure if I was ready to forgive her yet.

A strangled gasp pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked up to see Lenalee looking like her eyes were about to fall out of her head. I knew what the expression meant, she had figured it out. "No way! That can't be true! But you've been using his real name! And you're sharing a bed! And- Oh god! That's why you almost hit me at lunch, isn't it? I can't really blame you for that though, I'd be pissed too if someone was treating my lover the way I'd been treating Allen. But why all the secrecy? Why hide that he's carrying your children? I know we wouldn't have taken _that_ news well, but it couldn't have been worse than what did happen."

She finally fell silent, waiting for me to respond and confirm her suspicions; though from the look on her face she was clearly hoping I'd tell her she was wrong. I was still torn, but at least her figuring it out first meant that I wouldn't be breaking my promise to Allen. That and her question had really bothered me. "Che. I already told you that. He's too scared of what will happen when people learn that he's gay."

Lenalee rolled her eyes at me. It definitely hadn't escaped her notice that I didn't deny her suspicions. "Yes, you did say that, but I was asking about _you_. Why did _you_ go along with that?"

I snorted as I sat down on the edge of the bed and began to run my fingers through the Moyashi's white hair. "Why do you think? He asked me to keep my mouth shut until he was ready to tell people. And to answer your next question, we learned today that he's carrying twins, that's what changed."

She blinked a few times and then raised an eyebrow at me. "And you're ok with having gotten a man pregnant?"

That question was getting really annoying. "Che. Like I told the Usagi earlier, if you want answers to your questions, you're going to have to talk to Allen. I'm still pissed at you."

She gave me a look, but then she sighed and brushed off her skirt as she stood up. "I get it. Just answer one question for me, and then I'll stop bothering you."

I raised an eyebrow at her as she fixed me with a very serious stare. "How long were you and Allen together before you got him pregnant?"

"About four and a half years."

Startled at hearing the words that I had had no intention of saying, I looked down to find the Moyashi wide awake. He was giving Lenalee that same serious stare that she'd been giving me just a moment before. "This pregnancy is very special to us, understand?"

The Chinese woman nodded furiously at the unspoken threat and quickly left the room. I turned my attention back to the Moyashi when he began tugging on the hand that was still in his hair. He was staring at me and I couldn't tell if he was angry or not. "So apparently you decided to break your promise and tell Lenalee even though I wasn't ready."

I sighed and kissed the pentacle on his forehead. "I didn't say anything. She figured it out. You're very affectionate in your sleep."

He pouted. "So you're saying that it's my fault?"

It was hard not to laugh at the look on his face. "Of course not. I'm saying that you should just accept that they know now and not be mad about it."

"'They'?" He gave me a questioning glare, but it faded almost instantly. "Ugh. Lavi knows too?!"

I laughed as he groaned and covered his face with a pillow. While he was distracted, I pushed his shirt up over his belly and began rubbing his lower back. He moaned and tried to push me away. "Don't do that, I'm mad at you."

The look on his face contradicted his words. I pulled his hands off my shoulders and pressed a few kisses onto his belly. "Come on, isn't this a good thing? Don't you at least feel a _little_ better about having twins knowing that those two know and are ok with us?"

He frowned and scowled at me. "Fine. I see your point. But that doesn't mean I'm going to forgive you for blabbing everything to them."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: As always, thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and follows. They are very much appreciated. And now it's time for the second flashback of this story.

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~Five Years Earlier~

Life with Kanda as my boyfriend was strange. He drove me absolutely insane - both in and out of the bedroom. We disagreed on everything, fighting like cats and dogs and nearly killing each other whenever we trained together. We might have acted that way because we wanted to hide our homosexual relationship, but I don't think we had ever actually considered that possibility. We acted that way because that was how we genuinely felt about each other. If it weren't for what was happening in the bedroom, I might have thought he hated me, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that wasn't the case.

Every once in a while, the sex would be like our first time; all I'd get was a rough kiss before I'd find myself bent over the nearest piece of furniture as Kanda fucked me from behind. But it was rare for Kanda to be that needy. Usually the sex was more like our second encounter, where Kanda would be so loving and intense in the way he'd touch my body that I would come from the foreplay alone.

That in and of itself was surprising. I had known from our first time that I would end up underneath Kanda the next time we were alone, but I didn't expect it to go _that_ way. I never thought that he would want to caress my body, much less that he would be so tender while doing it. Yet as we lay on my bed that night, he treated my body like it was something precious, something to be treasured, and that was mind blowing.

Kanda may not have loved me, or trusted me enough to let me into his bedroom, but he did care about me as more than just a sexual partner, and that was good enough for me. After all, that was how I saw him, so we were on the same page.

But then I got the news that he'd gone missing on his mission in Rome. And that's when everything changed.

.x.x.

Having recovered from the injuries I'd sustained on my last mission, and been grounded for the next few days for 'mental recovery', I was restless. But I knew the perfect cure for that: the Moyashi's body underneath my own.

I hadn't seen the boy since the mission ended, even though I knew he was also stuck at headquarters while he recovered. It never even occurred to me that that was on purpose. It never crossed my mind that Allen would be avoiding me. Until I walked into his bedroom that night.

One look at the scowl the Moyashi shot my way, and I knew he was mad, but it wasn't until I approached him and he pulled away that I realized that he was mad at _me_. "Go away, Kanda. I'm not in the mood."

Not knowing or caring why he was angry, as the Moyashi was usually angry at me and it had never been a reason for concern before, I scoffed at his words and lounged on his bed. "Are you a girl now, Moyashi?"

As predicted, Allen's response was to grab the closest thing to him, which in this case was a book, and chuck it at my head. "You can't just waltz in here like nothing happened!"

The book missed, slamming into the wall several inches from its target. I ignored it and studied the Moyashi carefully. I had no clue what he was talking about, but whatever it was that had happened had made him rather irate. I knew better than to say that out loud though; admitting that I didn't know what I'd done to piss him off would just piss him off more. So I stayed silent and let him vent his anger at me.

"How stupid are you?! You constantly chew me out for being naïve and reckless, and then you go and do exactly what you keep telling me not to do! You've got people that worry about you too, you know! Do you realize just how heart wrenchingly awful it was for me to hear that you'd gone missing? Or how painful it was to watch you intentionally get yourself wounded?"

I rolled my eyes as I pushed myself up so that I was seated on the edge of the bed, reclining backwards on my hands. "Che. What's the big deal, Moyashi? I'm fine."

Allen's voice rose in pitch as he gestured wildly at me. "The 'big deal' is that I love you, moron!"

He froze at the words he clearly hadn't meant to say out loud. I froze too. Those three words were something that had never been said between us before. But it wasn't a surprise to me that he was the first to say them; I'd known from the beginning that it would happen like that, and I had suspected for a while now that he was leaning that way.

Allen didn't wait for me to respond. He brushed the comment aside and returned to yelling at me for being reckless. I was perfectly fine with avoiding that subject. I cared about the Moyashi, but the day when I would love him was still a ways away; with the way our relationship was progressing, it was definitely coming, but it wasn't here yet. And we did not need to talk about that.

I was only half-listening to Allen as he vented his anger, but I was present enough to know that the placement of his hands in my hair and his lips against mine would have been just as unexpected if I actually had been paying full attention to him.

As we kissed, he knelt on the bed, straddling my thighs with his knees. He was practically sitting on my lap. As I moved my hands towards the hem of his shirt, the Moyashi suddenly broke the kiss, yanked out my hair tie, and pushed me so that I fell backwards against the mattress. Before I could question any of it, he was leaning over me with a dangerous look in his eyes. "It's time for you to accept your punishment."

I laughed at him as I reached up and pulled the ribbon around his neck loose. "You're going to _punish_ me? How is that supposed to work, Baka Moyashi?"

The Moyashi didn't answer. Instead, he leaned down and captured my lips. I quickly dominated the kiss, plundering his mouth with my tongue. For someone who claimed to be angry at me, Allen turned submissive incredibly quickly. While I grabbed the brat's ass and pulled him closer to me, moving us so that we were fully on the bed and therefore in a much better position for making out, he was content with simply unbuttoning my shirt.

But when I broke the kiss to pull my shirt off, I learned that his submissiveness was just an act. The second my arms were free of my sleeves, the Moyashi was tying my wrists to the headboard with his ribbon. He smirked triumphantly at me as I fought against the bonds. "It works like that. Now be a good boy and accept your punishment."

I swore in response, but he ignored me and focused his attention on my pants. I debated fighting him as he pulled them off, but if the night was going to end in sex, I needed them off. So I focused my attention on trying to free my hands. Unfortunately, Allen's knots held strong.

The Moyashi's next move was to climb off the bed and strip himself bare. He did it incredibly quickly, knowing better than to tease me in this situation.

Fully naked, Allen climbed back on top of me, pinning me to the mattress by kneeling on my thighs, effectively keeping me from kicking him off me. From there he played with my body the way that I would play with his. He kissed and nipped at several different spots on my chest and neck, leaving hickeys behind as his fingers explored my skin until they found sensitive areas to tease and make me moan.

Despite my unwillingness, it all felt really good, and I couldn't help but wonder what he was up to. "How is this punishme-? Unn!"

My words cut off as I felt something hard and slick push into my hole. Whatever it was didn't hurt too horribly, but the pain definitely derailed my train of thought and made thinking a lot harder. It wasn't until a second object joined the first and the two began to scissor and wiggle around together that I realized what was going on. The Moyashi had shoved his fingers inside me and was stretching my opening. "What the fuck do you think you're fucking doing?"

The glint in Allen's silver eyes was borderline evil. "I told you: it's punishment."

His fingers never stopped moving as he leaned forward to whisper in my ear. The feeling of his hot breath on my skin was electric, but his words sent a chill down my spine. "You didn't really think I'd always be submissive to you, did you?"

I understood now. The Moyashi wanted me to be the submissive one this time around; he was going to punish me by making me bottom. To emphasize his point, Allen shoved another finger inside me as he bit my ear. My choicely worded protest died before I uttered a single syllable, and I instead moaned in pleasure.

I knew from the few times I'd made him suck me off that the Moyashi was good with his mouth, but it was quite different having that mouth tease at my neck while his fingers played around inside me. But just because it felt good did not mean that I was going to lay there and accept his punishment.

My attempt to free my hands backfired. As I moved my body to try to wriggle out of the knots, I increased the friction of Allen's fingers against my walls, causing him to brush against a spot that made the heat filling my body grow so strong that I could barely hold back a fierce moan.

Which did not go unnoticed by Allen.

The brat Moyashi began pressing repeatedly against that spot, teasing me with that ever increasing heat until I was audibly moaning and no longer struggling against him.

The relief I felt when he finally stopped teasing me and removed his fingers from my hole was short lived. I had just barely returned to my senses when Allen hooked my right leg over his shoulder and thrust his length into me.

Despite how attentive he'd been with stretching me, it still hurt to have him inside me like that and I swore fiercely at him. But the pain vanished almost immediately as he began thrusting into me, and before I realized it, I was moving my hips in time with his and the random curse words I'd been spewing had morphed into embarrassingly loud moans and groans.

I knew I was enjoying what he was doing to me, but I didn't realize just how much until his left hand found my dick; it wasn't until I felt the firm yet gentle touch of his Innocence fingers on my heated shaft that I noticed that I was fully, almost painfully, erect - it wasn't going to be long at all before I reached my end.

Allen wrapped his hand around my length, probably intending to tease me further, but the second his fingers closed around my shaft, I came.

The Moyashi squeaked in surprise, but it quickly became a moan as he released inside me.

We lay there for a bit as we came down from the high and regained control of our breathing. As soon as the Moyashi pulled out of me, I kneed him in the leg, instantly regretting the sharp motion, and gestured towards my tied up wrists with my head. "Untie me, Baka Moyashi."

Allen leaned forward as if he was going to do what I demanded, but then he paused, smirking darkly at me as he sat up. "Have you learned your lesson yet?"

I echoed his smirk, trying to mess with him. "What happens if I say no?"

He blinked at me with so much innocence in his silver eyes that it made it hard to believe that he had just dominated me like that. "You mean you'll let me do that again?"

It was my turn to be surprised. That wasn't what I had meant at all, but now that the question was out there, it needed to be answered if I didn't want the Moyashi to nag me about it until the end of time. My pride wanted me to yell something along the lines of 'fuck no!' at him, but the rest of me was a little more rational. The sex had been perfectly fine with him on top, and I could already picture it being useful; those times where I wanted sex but was too tired to spend time on foreplay could be much more easily handled by simply letting the Moyashi be the dominant one. "If you promise not to tie me up again, I'll consider it."

The way his eyes lit up was priceless. "I promise."

He stared at me expectantly, clearly waiting for my answer now that he had agreed to my demands. I merely raised an eyebrow at him in response, pointedly telling him that he wouldn't get an answer until he untied me. The staring contest lasted only a few seconds before the Moyashi got it. He blushed in embarrassment and immediately scrambled to untie his ribbon from around my wrists. "Oh. Right. Sorry."

Once my arms were free, I sat up slowly, pulling myself out from under Allen and trying to ignore the trickle of fluid coming from my ass. As I did that, he sat back on his heels, fiddling absently with his ribbon. The look on his face said that he was waiting for me to hit him. Not being able to resist teasing him, I reached out and tousled his hair, loving the way he flinched as my hand got close to him. "Ok, ground rules. _I_ decide which of us is on top. If you want to top, you have to ask first, and if I say no, that's the end of it. Understand?"

The Moyashi snorted and pushed himself off the bed. "So basically, you're in charge."

Before I could respond to his teasing, he suddenly got very serious. The look on his face said that he was not to be messed with. "No. If we're going to keep doing this, we have to be partners. I'm not going to play your submissive toy anymore."

I opened my mouth to argue with him, mostly just to see how he'd react, but he cut me off. "I can't ignore my feelings any longer. I love you, Bakanda. And that means that I can't let things continue on like this. If you want to keep having sex with me, then you're going to have to start treating me like an equal."

Tuning him out, I let him ramble on as I thought about what he was saying. It brought me back to what he'd been yelling about before the sex, and I could suddenly see the point he was trying to make. "Ok."

He froze mid-sentence and stared blankly at me. "'Ok', what?"

"Ok, you're right. I'll work on treating you better." The surprise on his face when I said those words was priceless. "I started this thing knowing full well that you were going to turn it into a relationship, so I really shouldn't be surprised that that's what happened. I'm not ready to give you up yet, so let's see what happens when we do things your way."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thanks for the reviews. We're back to the present now, and it's time for Teidoll to make his appearance.

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~Present Day~

The week after my friends learned the truth was weird. I expected them to either pester me incessantly with questions or go back to ignoring me, but they did neither. Lavi walked on eggshells around me, especially whenever Kanda was near, but his behavior was more like it was back before my pregnancy. By the end of the week, he had worn down the other exorcists, and they once again let me sit with them at meals. It would have been great, if he hadn't started calling me "Allie". _I may be pregnant, but I am_ _ **not**_ _a girl, thank you very much_.

Lenalee was a different matter altogether. She continued to ask me random questions about my babies and the pregnancy, but aside from asking who else knew, she carefully avoided the subject of my relationship with Kanda. After being without her company for so long, it was weird to suddenly have her at my side almost constantly once more. But I knew to be suspicious of the times she wasn't around; it was obvious that she was up to something.

However, I wouldn't find out what that something was until my next appointment with Komui.

The check-up went like usual; he examined my belly and did some tests before declaring the three of us healthy. But when it was over, he didn't dismiss me. Instead, he asked me to follow him.

Komui led me from the infirmary to the residential wing. He passed the hallway where my room was supposed to be, and that put me on edge. And when we turned down Kanda's hallway, I started to panic, thinking Lenalee had spilled everything to her brother. However, we came to a stop in front of a door further down the hall. Komui pulled the key from his pocket and opened the door.

I followed him inside, but paid no attention to the space until Komui put the keys in my hand. "I hope it's to your liking, Allen-kun. If it's not, let me know so we can fix it before your daughters arrive."

I blinked at him for a moment before I realized that he was giving me the room. Burning with curiosity, I took in everything. We were standing in a small lounge, about the size of my old room; it was practically furnished, yet the grey couch and the two matching chairs looked quite comfortable. There were four doors off the lounge: the one back out to the hall, a bathroom, a bedroom, and what appeared to be a nursery, if the pastel pink walls were anything to go by.

When I did nothing but stand there staring, Komui nudged me towards the nursery. "Go on. I know you want to look closer."

I paused in the doorway and almost cried as I took in the room. Like with the little lounge, it was simply furnished, but it had everything I would need for taking care of my daughters. The two cribs were done up in matching styles: one in lavender and the other in yellow.

Turning back to Komui, I tried to stammer out a thank you, but he just laughed it off. "Don't thank me, thank my precious Lenalee. She's the one who pointed out that you need more space for your babies. She did most of the work too. Now, go check out your new bedroom."

I did as he suggested, but the words he spoke next had me freezing in place before I had made it two steps. "It should be big enough to fit both you and Kanda comfortably."

I nearly choked on my own saliva. Collecting myself as best as I could, I managed to stammer out, "Wha- what are you talking about?"

My feigned ignorance made Komui laugh. "I've known from the beginning, Allen."

 _Komui has known all along?_ I couldn't make myself turn around to face him, and I couldn't make my tongue work either. Komui laughed again. "Did you really think it was a coincidence that he's been assigned to fewer missions lately?"

"I just assumed that he was shirking his duties. He's never been very good at taking orders from Central." Promoting Kanda to general had definitely backfired on them a little. But that thought only distracted me for a moment before my focus returned to Komui's original, panic-inducing, statement. I turned around to stare at the Supervisor. "How did you figure it out?"

He chuckled and guided me over to the couch; it was a good thing he did because I was very shaky on my feet. When I was comfortably seated, Komui explained. "It's complicated, but basically what I did was compare genetic material from your babies to samples from the Order's personnel. Kanda's sample is the one that matched, so I was able to conclude that he's the babies' father. At first I thought he raped you, but your behavior made it clear that your babies were conceived during consensual sex with your boyfriend."

He paused and gave me a look that was clearly asking for a confirmation of his conclusions. "We've been dating since our first mission together."

Komui briefly looked stunned, but that was to be expected given that Kanda and I had spent the last five years at each other's throats; learning that we'd been sleeping together all along was understandably hard to take. But Komui collected himself quickly. "Well, that certainly makes what I have to say a lot easier. There's a rumor going around that you're a-"

The sentence cut off abruptly, so I took it upon myself to say the words Komui was too nice to say. "Whore? Prostitute? Hooker? Escort?" Komui raised an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged it off. "I'm familiar with the rumors. They're not true."

The Supervisor blinked at me a few times before clearing his throat. "Anyway, Central knows the rumors."

 _Oh, shit. I'm screwed._ My heart nearly stopped with Komui's words. I had been waiting for Central's decision on what would happen to me and my babies for months. Sure, Komui had repeatedly assured me that I would be able to keep my babies, but in the back of my mind, I always knew that they would be taken from me. It was the real reason I didn't care about the rumors: it didn't matter what people thought of me because this whole pregnancy thing wasn't going to end well. That didn't mean that I wasn't going to go out without a fight though. My daughters meant everything to me, and even though I knew it was futile, I was going to do everything in my power to try to keep them.

Komui kept talking, but the words did nothing to put my mind at ease. "And from the rumors, they have gathered that you're homosexual. And as I'm sure you're aware, the Catholic Church disapproves of homosexuality, and the usual punishment is execution."

I swallowed hard and my nervousness was rewarded with a sharp kick to the ribs from one of my babies. I was well aware that Central could choose to kill me once my babies were no longer inside me. The only thing keeping me from freaking out was that Komui was acting like he was giving me good news; I just had to stay calm long enough to hear what it was.

" _However_ , your pregnancy is the work of Innocence, and you yourself have one of the strongest bonds with the Innocence that we have ever seen. Which clearly means that God approves of you being a homosexual, so Central has decided that punishing you for it would be going against His will."

I gaped at Komui. I could not believe what he was saying. "Wait. You mean that Central's actually going to leave me alone for once?"

The Supervisor smiled. "Yes and no. They're going to ignore the gay thing, but they're still concerned that there might be truth to the rumors that you've been ... sleeping around. They've decided that they need to do something to correct that behavior."

"But it's not true!" I was going to be punished over a rumor. That was beyond unfair.

"Let me finish, Allen." My interjection made Komui laugh. He gently guided me back to my seat. "Central is ordering you to marry your babies' father."

I stared at Komui in complete and utter disbelief. "They want me to _marry_ Kanda?!"

He smiled knowingly at me. "Do you have a problem with that?"

I opened and closed my mouth several times as I tried to think of something to say. It was just too good to be true. Not only was I going to be able to keep my babies, but I was also going to be officially tied to the love of my life, something I thought was impossible. The relief was overwhelming and I began to cry. _Stupid pregnancy hormones._

Komui gave me an awkward hug and tousled my hair. "Sorry, I probably could have led into that better, but I know you've been worried about this for a long time; I wanted you to know the whole story so that you could finally relax and enjoy the rest of your pregnancy."

.x.x.

I sat in the dining hall at a table with the other exorcists, eating my soba slowly as I waited for Allen's exam to be over. I was anxious; he should have been done nearly an hour ago. It didn't help that the gossip in the room hadn't changed in the last week. Yes, Lenalee and Lavi had done a good job at convincing the other exorcists that they had jumped to conclusions and misjudged Allen, but even though the exorcists were treating the boy kindly again, almost everyone still believed those awful rumors.

To add to my already foul mood, the news that General Teidoll had just arrived at headquarters began to spread through the cafeteria. Only it didn't spread fast enough. Before I could even think about ditching my tray and finding somewhere to hide, my former general was walking into the dining hall and making a beeline straight for me.

I caught sight of Marie smothering a laugh behind Teidoll as the frizzy haired artist wrapped me in a tight hug that I struggled to escape from. The general sobbed and proclaimed his happiness over seeing me for the first time in almost a year, constantly repeating that it was far too long a time to be apart from his son. In my opinion, it was definitely not long enough; I would have been fine with not seeing that annoying old man for another year.

Teidoll calmed down and let me go just moments before Allen finally walked into the cafeteria. That white haired boy looked really excited about something, but when he saw that I was with Teidoll, the Moyashi shot a smirk in my direction and headed to Jerry's counter instead of coming to talk to me. Even though he was carrying my children, that damn brat was not about to give me a way out of this situation.

I only noticed that Teidoll had stopped babbling and was staring off into space when Marie drew my attention to it. "What's wrong, General?"

It took the old artist a moment to collect himself, he looked seriously messed up. He blinked a few times and then turned to me. "So the rumors are true? Allen Walker really is pregnant?"

I didn't miss the look Marie shot me, but I couldn't acknowledge it because Teidoll was demanding all my attention. But I didn't have to acknowledge it. The overly perceptive blind man was well aware that if Allen was pregnant, the baby was mine. I had never told him we were together, Marie had figured that out all on his own and confronted me about it right before I left the Order to chase after the Moyashi; it was quite a shock to learn that he had known about our relationship all along.

Focusing on Teidoll, I tried to think of a way to respond to his question without revealing my involvement. After the incident last week, I really wanted to prove to the Moyashi that I could keep my promise, and that would mean not letting my general know that I was about to be a father. Then again, that was something that I also didn't want. Teidoll would be insane to deal with if he thought he was getting grandchildren. "He learned last week that he's carrying twins."

What happened next is a bit of a blur. Teidoll looked over his shoulder, studying the pregnant Moyashi as he waited for his lunch. The words that came out of his mouth were probably an offhanded comment, just him repeating things he'd heard, but they made me see red. "So the little tart really did get himself knocked up by whoring around."

I'd been hearing things like that for months, but hearing _Teidoll_ say it pissed me off so completely that I lost control. I hauled off and punched him right in the face.

Marie restrained me before I could hit the old man again. I struggled against him, but the blind man did have over a decade of experience at restraining me when I was angry; I may have been stronger, but he definitely had the upper hand in this situation.

Teidoll gave me his usual lecturing look as he picked his broken glasses up off the floor, and it did little for helping me control my rage. It was a flashback to my preteen years, when I was constantly being lectured on my attitude. He didn't care why I was angry, just that I had acted out. "Was that really necessary, Yuu-kun?"

I ignored him and glared up at Marie, trying to regain my composure. "Let go of me already. I'm twenty three, dammit. Stop treating me like I'm a fucking child."

Unsurprisingly, Teidoll's response to my demand came in the form of his annoying teacher voice. I didn't notice or care what the actual words were; the tone was more than enough by itself to fuel my anger.

Marie, however, actually released me when I asked him to. He was completely unfazed by the fact that I had just punched our former teacher. But I barely registered that, as I was still nearly blind with rage. I crossed my arms and snarled at Teidoll. "Fuck no. I'm not going to let you get away with talking about the mother of my children like that. He is not a 'tart' and he has definitely not been 'whoring around', got it?"


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: I didn't get the next chapter of "A Second Neko" finished because of family stuff over Christmas, so I've decided that you get this a week early instead. Your reviews for Chapter 8 amused me a lot; thank you for writing them. ;) Anyway, I think you're all eager to find out what happens next...

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All activity in the cafeteria came to a screeching halt when Kanda punched General Teidoll in the face. Everyone had been ignoring the general as he greeted-slash-tortured his former student, but even with Kanda's fierce temper, it was unusual for the samurai to physically lash out against Teidoll, and now everyone was paying attention to the three men standing in the middle of the dining hall.

I may not have heard what Teidoll said to make Kanda hit him, but I could guess. It was written all over Kanda's face that his former teacher had said something rude about me or my pregnancy. And if that was truly the case, Teidoll was lucky that he hadn't been run through with Mugen.

Before I could decide if I should intervene or stay out of it, Kanda, in the middle of all his angry snarling and cussing, referred to me as the mother of his children. And he said it loud enough for the entire cafeteria to hear.

My gut instinct was to flee as everyone's focus shifted to me, but I forced myself to remain calm. This may not have been how I wanted the news of our relationship to get out, but before all this happened, I had been on my way to give Kanda permission to tell people, so it's not like I wasn't expecting to be embarrassed in front of the entire cafeteria today.

.x.x.

I returned to my senses as I heard a very familiar long-suffering sigh. The Moyashi had obviously seen me hit Teidoll and put the rest together for himself. He leaned his forehead against my chest and all of my rage disappeared with the physical contact. He sighed again. "So you finally snapped, Yuu."

Oddly enough, now that my anger was gone, I actually felt guilty for what I had done, but I wasn't about to tell the Moyashi that. Instead, I remained my usual cold self on the outside as I tried to wrap my head around everything that had just happened. "Che. The old man had that coming for a long time. He just finally pushed me too far."

I expected the Moyashi to lecture me on controlling my temper, but Allen merely laughed at the comment. "I know. He drives you crazy. You've explained this before. But did you really have tell him about us like that? Where absolutely everyone could hear you?"

I blinked. Apparently, I'd been louder than I thought. But then a different thought struck me. I raised an eyebrow at the Moyashi's nonchalant expression. "You're not mad?"

He laughed again. "I've known for the last six months that you could snap at any moment. It's rather remarkable that your patience held out this long."

I made a face at him, but he leaned closer and whispered seductively in my ear. "I'm glad I mean so much to you that you were able to hold in your temper simply because I asked you to."

Then that look was gone and he was back to his usual cheerful self. It felt good to see him smile genuinely like that. "Besides, as of twenty minutes ago, all of my reasons for wanting to keep our relationship a secret are gone. You can be as open as you want regarding your involvement in my pregnancy."

The comment was followed by him pressing a set of keys into my hand. I blinked down at them. "What are these for?"

"Our new suite. Komui says we can move in as soon as our marriage is finalized." He was making sense right up until the end there. Despite his current condition, we had never once discussed getting married; we were both well aware that it was impossible because we were both male.

I could only blink stupidly at the Moyashi, wondering if the pregnancy hormones had made him lose a few marbles. "What do you mean by 'marriage'?"

"Central says that if I want to prove that I'm not a whore, I have to marry the father of my babies."

I blinked at him for a moment. "I'm going to need more of an explanation than that."

"Ah, right." He blushed and placed his forehead back on my chest. "Because my pregnancy is the work of Innocence, Central has decided to ignore the fact that I'm homosexual."

I felt my eyes grow wide. Despite having constantly reassured the Moyashi that everything would work out, there was a part of me that had believed that we wouldn't make it through this alive. It was both surprising and relieving to hear that that wouldn't be the case.

.x.x.

While Allen was calming Kanda down, Marie was doing the same for General Teidoll, helping him clean up the blood from his broken nose and trying to get him to stop calling Kanda an ungrateful brat. Everyone in the cafeteria was still watching the four men, but after Kanda's declaration, the conversation had grown too quiet to hear.

Not that they needed to hear to get the gist of what was going on. Allen was touching Kanda in a way that clearly indicated that he wasn't angry over what the samurai had announced, and the placement of Kanda's hands on the younger's protruding baby bump made it clear that what he'd said was true.

The reactions to that news were all very different, but everyone was too stunned to actually act on what they were thinking. Even those who had been convinced by Lavi and Lenalee that Allen wasn't a whore would never have expected Kanda to be the babies' father. The two were fire and ice, polar opposites. That they had laid together and touched each other in that way was mind blowing.

Things got going again when Marie's attempts to soothe Teidoll failed. The frizzy haired man stared at Kanda and demanded an apology for breaking his nose. While Kanda met the stare and kept his mouth shut, Allen and Marie shared a look. The blind man let out a noise that was a cross between a sigh and a laugh. "General, he's not going to do that until you apologize for what you said. You insulted his lover, you're lucky all he did was hit you."

Kanda's scowl deepened at the words, and that made Black Allen smile. But before his devious side could be unleashed, Allen winced and quickly turned towards the cafeteria doors. "I'll be right back. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

"Moyashi-?" Kanda caught Allen's arm to stop him, but the young man pulled out of his hold.

"I'm going to the bathroom. One of your brats just found my bladder."

Kanda watched Allen leave before turning back to Marie and Teidoll. He scowled at the general who, having heard Allen say that his babies were Kanda's, was no longer angry over being punched. Instead, what he was was very curious, and the look he was giving Kanda made the samurai want to run away. So he did. Kanda turned on his heel and stalked out of the cafeteria.

He didn't make it very far, as luck was clearly not on his side at the moment. Upon exiting the cafeteria, the samurai promptly collided with a certain klutzy German woman. Miranda apologized profusely, but by the time Kanda had disentangled himself from her and gotten to his feet, Teidoll and Marie had caught up with him.

To add to his stress, as soon as they were standing, Miranda threw her arms around Kanda's shoulders in a tight hug. "I just saw Allen. Congratulations! You two are going to be great parents!"

The German woman began babbling, so Marie quickly peeled his fiancée off Kanda before the samurai blew his top again. Kanda turned away from them to glare at Teidoll when the general placed a hand on his shoulder. "What's going on, Yuu?"

Cornered, Kanda had no choice but to tell them the whole story. He scowled fiercely and grumbled out the answers to the questions he knew Teidoll was about to ask. "The Moyashi and I have been together since he first joined the Order. A few months ago, we lost an Innocence fragment on a mission, and when we found it a few weeks later, it had already gotten him pregnant."

Unimpressed with Kanda's storytelling abilities, Teidoll pressed for more details, but the samurai obstinately refused to elaborate. Fortunately for everyone involved, that was when Allen returned from the bathroom.

The white haired young man smiled politely and answered the first couple questions, but when Teidoll referred to himself as the grandfather of Allen's babies, his cooperative mood vanished. He abruptly ended the conversation with the suggestion that the general go to the infirmary to get his broken nose looked at. Unaware that the suggestion was something other than concern for his wellbeing, Teidoll left.

Ignoring the others, Allen went back into the cafeteria to collect the food he'd been distracted from earlier. But they knew that's what he was doing and so they followed him. When Allen looked up from setting down his plates at an empty table, he found himself surrounded by people. Marie, Miranda, and Kanda were closest to him, the samurai clearly bullied into being there by the blind man, but around them were all the exorcists, scientists, and finders that he had considered to be his friends back before he got pregnant.

Allen scowled fiercely at the crowd as he sat down. "I'm not explaining anything until I'm done eating, so you may as well go about your business."

About half of the crowd dispersed, doing what the white haired young man wanted so as to not anger him further. The rest were too curious to leave, so they chose to wait until Allen was done eating. A few braver souls tried to ask questions of Kanda, but the samurai just stared silently at them, his face set in such a deep scowl that it made those who had spoken want to run away screaming.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! Spoiler alert for those of you who care: as of the chapter I'm currently writing (17), Teidoll still has not apologized. But Cross has shown up now, so I imagine that's going to change... Anyway, on to chapter 10!

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It was just my luck that Teidoll returned to the cafeteria right as Allen finished eating. Fortunately, he just stood at the edge of the gathered crowd and made no attempt to approach me. Though I did feel a little guilty for hitting the man, I quite enjoyed the fact that they'd had to shave off his moustache in order to bandage his nose.

The Moyashi's empty plates were whisked away before he could use them as an excuse to delay his explanation, causing him to sigh heavily. He gave me a look that seemed to ask if I'd save him, but I was ready for the truth to come out and I wanted _him_ to do it. Allen frowned at me then turned his attention on the crowd. "Well, I guess I'll just start at the beginning. Eight months ago, Lenalee, Kanda, and I went on a mission together. I'm sure you all remember it: I broke my ankle and had to return early."

Most of the observers nodded along, nearly everyone knew about Allen's broken ankle, but a few, namely Marie, Miranda, and Teidoll, were quite surprised by that news. But the Moyashi didn't bother to elaborate for them. "What you don't know is that our mission was to gather _two_ Innocence fragments, not just one. We had collected the first before I got hurt, and Lenalee and Kanda collected the second without me. When they got back, we learned that the first of the fragments had gone missing. It wasn't until ten weeks later that we learned where it went."

The Moyashi's hands slid off the table, and I knew from the bittersweet look on his face that they were resting on his belly. "In the few hours it had been in our possession, the Innocence fragment had absorbed into my body and changed my internal organs, making it so that I got pregnant with its accommodator the next time I had sex."

"So did the Innocence force you to be with Kanda? Since he was the one on the mission with you?" I glared at the scientist who spoke, but I couldn't bring myself to actually cuss the man out like I wanted to. Though I don't know if that was because of the Moyashi's influence or because Marie was sitting close enough to stop me from acting out.

Allen smiled sweetly at the scientist, but I could see the offense he was masking. "Kanda and I have been together for five years - ever since our first mission together."

The people around us began to whisper amongst themselves, reacting to that news, but the Moyashi ignored their surprise and talked over them. "I'm sure that the Innocence knew that, and from there it knew that it was only a matter of time before we next slept together. Which is why it chose me instead of Lenalee." He chuckled once. "If I hadn't broken my ankle when I did, I probably would have gotten pregnant that night."

He wasn't wrong; we definitely would have had sex that night if he hadn't gotten hurt. And while the thought made me laugh a little internally, the subject was immediately changed to one that made me angry.

The female finder who spoke up was one I knew well. Unfortunately. She was one of the most vocal when it came to calling Allen horrible names. Making it even worse was the fact that prior to his pregnancy, she had been one of Allen's greatest admirers. "If you two have really been together for five years, why didn't you say something back when all this first happened? Surely that would have been better than letting us think that you're a whore."

While I forced myself to not lash out at the finder, something that took a whole lot of self-control, Allen shook his head at the people agreeing with her. "I thought you were teasing me, so I played along with the joke. By the time I realized that you seriously thought I was sleeping around, the damage had been done. Besides, homosexuality is supposedly a mortal sin. I knew that I was most likely going to be executed after I gave birth, and revealing Kanda as the father of my baby would have meant that he'd be executed too. And I couldn't do that. I needed to be sure that at least one of us would live to raise our daughter."

I gaped at the Moyashi, who was looking down at the table, clearly avoiding my gaze. He had never told me that before. He had always insisted that he was fine with the way things were, but he had never told me why. I had thought it was because he was scared of what the others would say about our relationship. Learning that he was keeping quiet to keep me alive was quite unexpected. Yet it was so very much like Allen to sacrifice himself to protect me; I should have known that that's what he was doing. I wanted to say something to him, but he was only silent for a moment after that declaration.

Allen sighed and forced a bright smile onto his face. It wasn't as bright as the one he'd been wearing when he first came into the cafeteria for lunch, but it was genuine and that was really good to see. "Anyway, I got the news today that Central has decided that they're not going to punish either of us for being homosexual. Because the Innocence caused my pregnancy, they're going to ignore the whole homosexuality thing and let us go about our lives like normal."

The somber mood that had settled over everyone when Allen started talking about execution had vanished with those words, but it instantly returned when that same finder spoke up again. "But still, to have been going through that, while we were all being so cruel to you... how can you sit there and smile at us like nothing happened?"

Allen snorted, and I knew what was coming next: the brat was going to forgive them for their actions before they apologized. "When I was a kid working at the circus, I was beaten up on a daily basis by adults who thought that physically abusing the boy with the deformed left arm made them better people. While your unkind words may have hurt, I have been through far worse."

The Moyashi clearly meant for his story to brush off the emotional damage that the others had caused over the last few months, but the words actually had a very different effect on the gathered crowd. A few of the women started crying and ran from the room while everyone else just stared at Allen wearing the same shamefaced look. It was no secret that Allen didn't like to talk about his past, and learning that he was hiding a history so terrible that it made the treatment he'd been receiving over the last few months seem like nothing in comparison caused the others to become quite guilt ridden.

Marie's hand on my knee tightened almost painfully. I knew exactly what his unspoken question was, and I shoved his hand away, telling him that yes, I did know the Moyashi's history. Letting my anger with the situation seep out, I scowled fiercely at Allen. "Don't stop there, Moyashi. Tell them about the orphanage that repeatedly tried to poison you or about how General Cross would wrack up debt and force you to pay it off. If you're going to guilt trip everyone over this, you should at least do it right."

Allen blinked at me, his silver eyes wide and clueless. He was both horrified and confused by what I was suggesting. He blinked a few more times and the confusion won out. "What are you talking about? I wasn't trying to guilt trip anyone."

"Che. Maybe not, but it's what happened."

The Moyashi stared at me, but the serious look on his face only lasted for a moment before it became twisted with pain. He scowled down at his belly. "Will you two knock that off?"

Allen demanding things from his unborn babies was beyond adorable, but whatever it was the twins were doing, they didn't stop. The Moyashi grumbled as he pushed himself to his feet, a task that gave him a lot more trouble than he would ever admit to. He smiled halfheartedly at the others before giving a small bow and excusing himself. "Sorry, but I have to go use the restroom."

There was a murmur of protest, but everyone let the pregnant boy leave. I moved to follow him, but Marie's hands on my shoulders kept me firmly planted on the bench. I glared at the blind man, but he didn't let go. "Now then, Kanda, care to share your side of all this? If you've really been with Allen for five years, you must genuinely care for him, so why would you have let all this happen?"

I scowled at Marie. His question was too personal, but at least he'd phrased it in a way that didn't give away things I'd told him in private. "Che. The Moyashi asked me to stay out of it. It's as simple as that."

Because I was focused on Marie, I didn't see who spoke up and interrupted me, but I didn't particularly care. "Then what do you call punching General Teidoll earlier?"

"Che. I call that _restraint_." I scowled sideways at Teidoll, still a little pissed over what he'd said. "A whole lot of restraint."

Marie's laughter covered the awkward silence that followed my statement. "You've been wanting to do that for fourteen years. You just finally had a way to justify it."

I turned my scowl back on the blind man. "Do you have a point?"

He shrugged. "Just that it's rather impressive that you did it to defend someone else and not simply because you were pissed off."

Marie's answer made me scowl even harder, and the murmurs that began to circulate just pissed me off even more. I finally shoved away from the blind man, turning my best death glare on the crowd as they whispered about my relationship with Allen. "Look. The Moyashi may have already forgiven you lot for your actions over the past few months, but I haven't. Until you can prove that you've changed, you'd best stay out of my way."

This time when I stalked away, no one tried to stop me.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Time for another flashback lemon! This one takes place sometime between moving headquarters and the Phantom Thief G arc.

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~Four Years Earlier~

Sneaking around to be with the Moyashi was getting old. It used to be so easy: a secret glance, a fake fight, and then we'd be alone. But now that stupid inspector from Central was here, shadowing Allen's every move. It was a pain in the ass to get the boy alone, and there weren't many safe places at the new headquarters to have sex, especially now that the Moyashi's bedroom was off-limits.

The whole thing was growing rather tiresome. And I was growing frustrated. I needed to be alone with my Moyashi.

It was while I was meditating that morning that I suddenly realized that there _was_ a perfectly safe place for us to be together that no one would ever find. Whether or not we could use it was simply a matter of whether or not I trusted Allen enough. And even though my feelings for the boy were stronger after his "death" and the whole fiasco with the ark - we'd even survived learning that he was the host of a Noah - I was on the fence about that.

But we hadn't had sex in two weeks.

If I wanted to put an end to my frustrations, I was going to have to let my boyfriend into my bedroom.

.x.x.

Allen was intrigued when Kanda told him that he had found a place where they could be alone and Link couldn't find them. And when that place turned out to be the samurai's bedroom, the white haired teen was nearly stunned speechless; he knew exactly how significant it was that Kanda was letting him into his private space.

He surveyed the room silently, wanting to satisfy his curiosity without risking offending Kanda and getting kicked out. The room wasn't what he was expecting, but in retrospect, he didn't know why he was expecting something other than Order-issued furniture with no personal touches.

That's when his eyes caught the hourglass on the table. The fact that the samurai had an hourglass was odd enough, but what was inside it was so weird that Allen couldn't help asking about it. "Why do you have a lotus in an hourglass?"

Kanda had been enjoying watching his Moyashi, loving that excited sparkle in the younger's silver eyes, but those words nearly made his heart stop. The lotus was a hallucination. Like the shadow in the Moyashi's reflection, it was an illusion that only he could see. Which meant that the fact that Allen could also see the lotus was mind boggling to him. It was simultaneously terrifying and incredibly touching. But as soon as his brain wondered how it was possible that the Moyashi could see the lotus, he knew the answer. Allen could see it because Kanda had let him inside his carefully constructed walls; he was in love with the Moyashi and that love was what enabled the younger to see the illusion.

It was a stunning realization for the samurai. He thought he would have been aware of it happening, and it threw him to find that it had happened without him even noticing. But there was no denying it was true: Kanda loved his Moyashi.

And the whole thing was proven further by what Allen did next.

Sensing Kanda freeze in reaction to his question, Allen turned around and gave him a comforting, real smile. He knew exactly why the samurai had acted like that and what he had to say to fix it. "I'm sorry. I get it. That was too personal. You can forget I asked."

He moved over to the bed and sat down on the edge, smiling gently at Kanda. "In case you've forgotten, it's been longer than six months." The scowl on the samurai's face told him that the other knew exactly what he was referring to. "I really don't mind if you still want to keep it a secret. I know it was just a time frame you chose at random, and I'm not going to pressure you into telling me about your tattoo, or the lotus. My curiosity can wait until you're ready to trust me."

He collapsed onto his back and smiled melancholically up at the samurai. "Just don't make me wait too long, Yuu. I'd like to know before I die, and with this whole thing with the Fourteenth, I may not have much longer to live."

The words had their intended effect. Kanda snapped out of his introspective state and moved to the bed, climbing on top of Allen and pinning his arms above his head. He growled fiercely at the white haired teen. "You better fight that bastard off when the time comes, Moyashi. I will not stand for you to play the martyr in all this, got it?"

Allen smirked playfully up at the man he loved. "The only thing you like me to play is submissive."

Kanda scowled back at the teen, knowing full well that if the Moyashi's hands weren't currently pinned down, they would be doing something naughty. And while he definitely did not object to that, he wasn't finished with their conversation. "I'm being serious, Moyashi."

"I know." Allen craned his neck to give the samurai a quick kiss. "But I'm as uncomfortable talking about this as you are with talking about your past. However, unlike that, the Fourteenth is all anyone wants to talk about. I don't want to have to talk about it _here_ too."

Seeing that Kanda understood, Allen turned playful once again. "So the big question is: now that you've got me in your bed, what are you going to do with me?"

The words were followed by Allen pressing his knee to the samurai's groin and gently rubbing against the bulge in his lover's pants. Kanda had to suppress a moan at the pleasurable friction, and he quickly turned his attention to undressing the boy beneath him. He swiftly untied the Moyashi's ribbon and undid the top buttons of his shirt, exposing the boy's throat, which he promptly attacked.

Allen's teasing of Kanda's groin stopped as the samurai's mouth began working on marking his throat, his leg falling limply back against the mattress as he gasped and moaned under his lover's touch. His freed hands made a beeline straight for Kanda's hair tie, but he had difficulty untying it through the haze of pleasure that was starting to overtake him. It certainly didn't help that the elder wouldn't stop moving his head.

The long, navy strands finally came loose, cascading down around them right as Kanda's fingers finished with the buttons on Allen's shirt. With that beautiful ivory chest exposed, Kanda's mouth moved lower, marking as much of the younger's pale skin as he could.

Torn between taking action and giving in and letting the samurai pleasure him, Allen elected for getting off as much of his clothing as he could, as his pants were starting to become uncomfortably tight. His boots and socks were easy enough to kick off, but it was a little more difficult to remove his pants while Kanda was kneeling over him and leaving hickeys on his chest. Once the offending garment was removed, leaving him in just his opened dress shirt and boxers, he turned his attention on the still fully clothed Kanda.

The samurai pulled away from Allen the moment he felt the younger's fingers on the buttons of his jacket, loving the way his Moyashi whined at the loss of physical contact. The younger's white hair was disheveled and his silver eyes were wild and slightly glazed as he struggled to regulate his breathing. But as the samurai unbuttoned his jacket with teasing slowness, his gaze was focused not on the boy's face, but on the bulge in the Moyashi's boxers, watching it grow bigger as he stripped off his clothes, piece by piece, thoroughly enjoying the effect the strip tease had on the younger.

All thoughts in Allen's head vanished as he drank in the sight of his lover's naked form. Everything about Kanda's body was perfect, from his well-toned muscles to his flawless olive skin, and he couldn't wait for the samurai to be back on top of him. He knew that it was technically his turn to top, and, as such, he should at least _try_ to be something other than completely submissive, but this was their first time having sex in Kanda's bed, he could let the samurai be dominant out of turn just this once.

A growl from Kanda snapped Allen just far enough out of his haze to make him realize that he still had clothes on. He immediately scrambled to remove his shirt, but the samurai beat him to his boxers, yanking them off his legs so forcibly that he shrieked in surprise.

The shriek quickly morphed into a deep moan as his shaft was engulfed in a moist heat. The unexpected pleasure of having his shaft in Kanda's mouth immediately pushed Allen over the edge, forcing the samurai to swallow his release if he didn't want the Moyashi's fluids all over his face and hair.

Coming down from orgasm, Allen was unsurprised to find two of Kanda's fingers inside his hole, already at work stretching his opening. The digits moved with a sense of urgency that made perfect sense given that one glance at the samurai's erect cock told Allen that the last couple weeks had taken their toll on him too.

The second Kanda deemed that Allen was sufficiently stretched, he removed his fingers and hooked the younger's leg over his shoulder. Time seemed to stop once Kanda's length was fully sheathed inside his Moyashi. In that moment, everything else faded away; their worries over the Fourteenth and hallucinated lotuses were forgotten, and all that remained was each other.

As Kanda thrust into the younger, Allen bucked his hips, increasing the friction and keeping time with his lover as they moved in unison. And when the tension they'd built up became too much to bear, they came in unison as well, crying out each other's real names as bliss washed over them.

They curled up in each other's arms when it was over, not saying anything, just loving the feeling of being together. They could have stayed like that forever, climbing under the blankets and sleeping in the same bed that night, a luxury generally reserved for when they were on missions together, but unfortunately, life had other plans for them.

Allen sighed heavily as he pulled away from his lover and began searching the room for his clothes. Kanda sat up, watching him in confusion. "Moyashi, what-?"

"I have to get back before Link decides to come looking for me." His voice was bitter as he pulled his boxers into place. "I've already been gone too long."

.x.x.

While the lovers lamented the forces that kept them apart, their Innocence fragments were holding a different conversation. As they watched their accommodators recover from their tryst, Mugen scoffed at Crowned Clown from where she was leaned against the nightstand. "I still can't believe that you let Allen break critical. Why would you choose to let a gay man synchronize with you like that?"

The question was beginning to annoy Crowned Clown; she had been asking it far too often lately. "Let me answer your question with a question. Was Yuu happy before he and Allen got together?"

Curious as to what his point was, Mugen answered swiftly and bluntly. "No."

Crowned Clown was unsurprised by her answer; it was exactly what he was expecting her to say. "Neither was Allen. At least, not anywhere near as happy as he's been in the last few months. And not only is he happier, he's opened up and started to let go of his past. Being in a relationship is good for him. Why should it matter that that relationship is homosexual?"


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! Those of you hoping for less angst are going to be disappointed with what happens in this chapter...

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~Present Day~

I was standing outside the bathroom, debating whether or not I wanted to return to the cafeteria, when Kanda approached. He looked really pissed off, but his anger faded when he saw me. I smiled as he grabbed my hand and began to lead me away from the dining hall; holding hands in public felt a lot better than I thought it would. Kanda even slowed his pace to match mine, walking at a speed that was comfortable for me, with my heavy pregnant belly, to keep up with.

Kanda relaxed fully once we'd turned a corner and were out of the line of sight of the dining hall, and it wasn't surprising to me that he chose then to question me. "Now that that's over, why don't you finish what you were saying earlier?"

I laughed lightly as I moved closer to him. "According to Komui, Central can't punish us for being gay because we're both critical breakers. If the Innocence didn't approve of us being homosexual, we never would have been able to surpass one hundred percent synchronization. Which means that if they were to punish us, they'd be going against the will of the Innocence."

When I paused for breath, Kanda laughed at me and nudged my shoulder with his. "Not that part, Baka Moyashi. The part about us getting married."

I blushed slightly in embarrassment. "Oh. Well, basically, even though they've decided not to punish me for being gay, they can't have me thinking that that gives me permission to continue having sex outside of marriage. So if I don't want to get punished for being a whore, we have to get married."

Kanda remained silent, clearly lost in thought, so I began to babble. "Komui's already arranged a suite for us; we'll have a big bedroom and a private lounge and bathroom, and Lenalee has furnished the smaller bedroom, turning it into a nursery for the babies. We're not going to have to cram all four of us into your room anymore. It's all ready for us to move in, we just have to get married first."

"Allen." The sound of Kanda's voice saying my real name halted me in my tracks, like it always did when I was babbling. I looked up to find him staring curiously at me. "What are _your_ thoughts on all this? Are you really as excited as you sound, or is this your way of trying to talk yourself into it?"

I blinked as I processed what he was asking, and then I couldn't help snorting derisively at him. "I realize we've never talked about marriage before, but we've been together for five years. I've been with you for longer than I've been with anyone other than Timcanpy, and he doesn't even really count because he's a golem. Of course I'm excited by the prospect of marrying you. Knowing that you will soon be my husband is-"

The rest of that sentence died as Kanda captured my lips in a fierce kiss. When he finally released me, I was dizzy and gasping for breath. I hadn't expected him to cut me off, but I had expected the kiss; he always got like that whenever I reminded him that I was with him because I wanted to be. Ironically, _he_ was the one who was insecure because our relationship had started with sex rather than feelings. Kanda often told me that he wished he'd loved me from the beginning, and while I agreed, I didn't regret the way it happened; I had very much enjoyed watching him fall in love with me as our relationship grew.

Kanda laughed lightly as he watched me struggle to breathe. He kissed my forehead and pulled me as close to him as my pregnant belly would allow. "So, did Komui happen to say how this is going to work?"

I nodded slowly; this was the part that I was not so happy with. "In order for Central to consider us properly married, we have to have a formal ceremony for them to observe. Komui's making the arrangements for that to happen on Friday."

"Why wait that long? Why not do it right away?"

I couldn't help sighing. "Master Cross can't get here till Thursday."

The confused look on Kanda's face was priceless. "Why do we have to wait for Cross to get here?"

His deep cobalt eyes widened in realization as soon as the question was out of his mouth, but I answered it anyway. "In order for it to be a proper ceremony, our mentors have to be here as witnesses."

Kanda swore under his breath. "That's why Teidoll showed up out of nowhere today, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Unlike Master Cross, General Teidoll came the second Komui called him."

He swore again, but then he fixed me with a critical stare. I knew that he was trying to figure out what it was that I was leaving out. "Cross doesn't know you're pregnant."

I shrugged uncomfortably. "In that I haven't told him. He's probably heard the rumors by now though."

Kanda snorted. "Cross knows that we're sleeping together. If he'd heard the rumors, he'd have been here months ago to kick my ass."

I couldn't bring myself to laugh at the joke, and that unfortunately told Kanda that he was wrong about what it was that I was leaving out. "What is it that you're hiding, Moyashi?"

After a moment of internal debate, I shook my head at him. "Not here. I can't do this in the middle of the hallway where anyone could walk by."

Kanda laughed in response and pulled me into a nearby closet. "That better?"

I snorted at him, planning to protest, but when I saw the chair in the room, it immediately called to my exhausted pregnant body, and I allowed myself to collapse into it. I crossed my legs so that my previously broken ankle was resting on top of my thigh, and I began massaging the aching joint. The act made Kanda laugh, but as he leaned back against the door, blocking the only exit, he fixed me with a stern look.

I sighed heavily and stared down at my ankle, desperately wishing that what I was about to say wasn't true. "Cross is my biological father."

"What?!" I wasn't looking at him, so I couldn't see the expression on Kanda's face, but I could picture it. His whole body radiated his surprise. "How long have you known?"

"Komui told me this morning." I sighed again. "Back when we first found out that I was pregnant, he did a test on the babies to figure out who their father is. Your sample was the one that matched, but Cross' did too..."

 _I was pulled from my thoughts when Komui placed a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to find him staring seriously at me. "Allen. There's something else you need to know. When I did that test on your babies, Kanda's sample wasn't the only one that matched."_

 _I blinked at him, completely confused. "How is that possible?"_

 _He pulled his hand away and cleared his throat. "The second match was only partial. Which led me to conclude that that sample belongs to your babies' grandfather."_

 _I felt my stomach drop. That wasn't at all what I was expecting to hear, and the true meaning of it was rather terrifying. "'Grandfather'? You mean-?"_

 _Komui nodded solemnly. "Your father."_

 _I knew that that was what he was going to say, but I still couldn't process it. I could only blink stupidly at the Supervisor as my pulse roared in my ears. "My father's here at the Order?"_

 _"Technically, he's not here right now as he's out on a mission, but yes." Almost as if he knew what I was going to ask next, he stared levelly at me. "He's an exorcist."_

 _I quickly scrambled through the roster of exorcists in my head. There were only a handful old enough to be my father, and of those, there was only one who was-..._ _ **Shit.**_ _"No. Please tell me that's not true."_

 _Komui shook his head and returned his hand to my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Allen. General Cross is your biological father."_

Kanda stared at me in silence for a moment before he moved close and pulled me into an almost uncomfortably tight hug. "Sorry, Moyashi. That must have been awful to hear. Does Cross know?"

I shook my head. "We won't know for sure until he gets here, but Komui doesn't think he does, and I'm inclined to agree."

I sighed and moved Kanda's right hand from my shoulder to my belly. "Komui thinks I'm like our babies. He thinks Crowned Clown made my mother get pregnant with me."

Kanda laughed lightly and kissed the top of my head. "That would certainly explain its obsession with keeping you alive."

The joke made me smile, but only a little. Kanda kissed my head again. "Don't dwell on it, Moyashi. You won't figure anything out on your own, so just put it aside until you can talk to Cross. Stressing about it isn't good for the babies."

"I know, I know." I sighed heavily and absently rubbed my belly, trying to soothe the squirming babies inside it; I'd woken them up with my worrying. "It's just so hard not to think about it. Cross being my father changes absolutely everything. All of my memories of our time together are horribly tainted by all this. And then there's my pregnancy and our babies, and General Teidoll's going to be around for the next few days, constantly spewing nonsense about grandchildren and weddings, and that just makes it all even worse, and-"

"Allen. You're babbling." I froze and stared up at Kanda, surprised to see nothing but concern in his eyes. He placed his thumb on my scarred cheek and gently brushed away a tear I hadn't noticed had fallen. "Don't worry about Teidoll. I'll talk to him. He won't bother you anymore."

Though I was touched by the offer, I couldn't help staring at Kanda with a deadpan expression. "Really? _You're_ going to talk to Teidoll? Because last I checked, you hated even the thought of doing that."

Kanda shrugged nonchalantly. "This is different. Knowing that you need me to do it will give me the strength to get through it." His confidence suddenly faltered. "I may have to get Marie to mediate it though. Or maybe I'll just get Marie to do it. He's better at handling the old man than I am. I-"

I cut him off with a brief kiss. "You're babbling, Yuu."

He scowled at my comment, but when I held out my hand to him, he took it and helped me to my feet. I kissed him once more in thanks. "Let's go back to your room. I need a nap."


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: As always, thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows!

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True to his word, Kanda did talk to Teidoll himself, without any help from Marie. He kept the part about Cross to himself, only explaining that the topic of grandparents was upsetting to Allen and should be avoided. The whole exchange was incredibly awkward, as Teidoll kept breaking out into tears of joy over his son finding a family of his own and just otherwise irritating Kanda, but in the end, he agreed to keep a lid on his excitement around Allen.

But aside from that, the next few days were meant to try Allen's patience.

Now that the truth of his relationship with Kanda had come out, the people of the Order had become completely overbearing, falling all over each other in their attempts to ingratiate themselves to Allen. In trying to get the pregnant young man to like them again, all they did was annoy him more than they had back when they were bullying him. Allen's self-sufficient spirit hated that they wouldn't let him lift a finger, and their constant favors invaded his personal space and made him feel exposed. While he was grateful that they were no longer going out of their way to be mean to him, he missed the privacy that being hated had given him. He wanted to tell them to leave him alone, but he was afraid that if he did, they'd get upset and go back to bullying him.

And Lenalee and Lavi were by far the worst offenders. Now that everyone else knew, it was glaringly obvious that they were pretending that they'd never abandoned Allen in the first place, and it irritated him to no end that they were acting like they always had. In fact, Lenalee already expected him to go back to confiding in her, and while he pretended to so as to not hurt her feelings, Allen knew in his heart that he would probably never fully trust her with his secrets again.

Of course, being thirty weeks pregnant with twins, Allen's body was also under a lot of stress, and his formerly broken ankle was suffering. Because of the weight he'd gained and the lack of mobility that came from being pregnant, he wasn't recovering like he was supposed to and he was experiencing far more pain than he should have been. So the doctors ordered him to go back to wearing a brace for the remainder of his pregnancy; it would ease the pain and reduce the risk of injuring the joint further. Allen fought against it, as wearing a brace made him feel like he was going backwards, and that frustrated him to no end. However, now that everyone knew that Kanda had fathered his babies, all the doctors had to do was tell the samurai what they wanted, and he made sure that the stubborn Moyashi did what was best for his health.

So Allen found himself walking around wearing an ankle brace. He scowled and complained whenever the subject came up, but by the end of that first day, he realized that the doctors had been right; his ankle felt a whole lot better than it had in the last few weeks. And that just irked him even more.

And then came his monthly examination with Hevlaska.

It was routine by this point, and not a cause for concern or annoyance, except for one major change. Now that Allen's closest friends knew the truth about his babies, they insisted on accompanying him to his exam. He tried his hardest to get them to go away, but they just wouldn't listen to him; part of him that was glad that they were expressing a genuine interest in him, but mostly he was just frustrated with their stubbornness.

The exam went just like it normally did, right up until Lavi started bouncing up and down with excitement. "Is it possible to find out which of Allen's babies is the accommodator of the fragment that got him pregnant?"

The question made Allen pause, as he wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answer, but it only confused Hevlaska. She blinked at the gathered exorcists for a moment before she realized what must have happened; they thought there was only one Innocence fragment involved because of the way she had worded her previous explanations. "It's not a matter of 'which'. They're _both_ accommodators. There were two pieces of Innocence that went missing and got Allen pregnant. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding my previous wording caused."

Allen ignored the apology, too stunned by the revelation that both of his babies were accommodators to process it. Keeping the conversation going, Hevlaska sighed and smiled down at Allen. "To clear up any future misunderstandings, you should also know that all the new fragments did was bind to the babies; it was Crowned Clown that changed your body."

Allen froze in shock as the true meaning of what she was saying hit him. "So, wait, are you saying that this is permanent? I'm going to be able to get pregnant again?"

She shook her head and answered honestly. "I don't know. There's no way to be sure until you're done with your current pregnancy, but it is possible and you should be prepared for that possibility."

While Kanda was thrilled that his Moyashi might be able to bear more children, Allen was so stunned by the news that he spent the rest of the day walking around like a ghost. It wasn't until they were alone in bed that night that he had finally processed the information enough to begin to think about it. He had no clue how he felt about the news that he might be able to have more kids, but after talking about it with Kanda, they came to the same conclusion: thinking about having more children was something that needed to wait until after the twins were born. They could discuss whether or not they wanted more babies after they knew for sure whether or not they could actually handle babies.

.x.x.

The news of my upcoming wedding reached someone I never expected to care about it: Neah.

I'd seen my "uncle" a few times since he'd found a new host, as he was now officially an ally of the Order, and while we got along ok, we weren't exactly close. The whole possession thing made it awkward, and I had a really hard time with knowing that while he knew literally everything about me, I still knew next to nothing about him. He loved to tease me - especially about my homosexual relationship - so it surprised me that he actually cared enough to want to be at my wedding.

Neah laughed when he saw that I was pregnant, but his amusement quickly turned to awe and sympathy. I expected crude jokes about how I was secretly a hermaphrodite, but instead, Neah was actually happy for me. He even told me that he thought I'd make a great parent. It was weird.

But on the other hand, Neah was the perfect person to complain about Cross to. He knew the man better than anyone else and would actually understand my complaints.

When I told Neah that Cross was my biological father, he didn't laugh at me; he sat there quietly and listened while I vented my frustration and confusion. And when I got to the part about how Crowned Clown had made my mother get pregnant with me, he didn't interrupt. It wasn't until I finished explaining Komui's theory that my mother was one of Cross' one night stands and that Cross probably hadn't even noticed that one of the Innocence fragments he was carrying had gone missing that Neah finally said something.

Yet, he did not react at all how I thought he would. He stared critically at me for a moment before he sighed and sat down beside me. He was being a whole lot calmer than I'd ever seen him before. "That may be true, but there's something very important that you're missing."

I blinked at him, too stunned by the realization that he actually knew what was going on to hold on to my anger towards the situation. "And what would that be?"

"Marian is a widower." The smirk that followed the words was undoubtedly aimed at the dumbfounded look on my face; I couldn't even begin to process that Master Cross had been _married_. Unfortunately for my sanity, Neah continued to talk. "If you truly are his son, his _wife_ is your mother."

It took a moment for me to get my mouth to work, and I latched on to the first coherent thought that passed through my overloaded brain. "'If'? You don't believe Komui's results?"

Neah shook his head. "I worded it like that to make a point. I very much believe that this is all true. I knew that you looked familiar from the moment I first saw you and I should have put this together by myself a long time ago. You look just like her."

His observation confused me, and that made me mad. "What do you mean 'just like her'?! Just like who?"

The final word came out as little more than a whisper as I put it together. And even though he knew I had figured it out, Neah answered the question anyway. "Your mother."

Hearing those words made me wish I were someplace else. _Any_ place else. I didn't want to know that I looked like my mother. Especially given what Neah had just said about the woman being Cross' wife. I tried to change the subject, but as I opened my mouth, a different thought struck me. "Wait. You knew my mother?"

"Of course I did." Neah laughed at the clueless look my face. "As Marian's wife, she and I had a lot of interactions together."

As unprepared as I was to hear that, what he said next was even more unexpected. "I knew you, too." He smirked slyly at me. "Of course, you were only a baby at the time, so it's quite understandable that you don't remember."

While I gaped at him and struggled to process what he'd just dropped on me, Neah sighed heavily. All traces of playfulness vanished and he went back to being incredibly serious. "However, there's one major problem with all of this. While Marian and I were away, there was a fire at his house. Both his wife and their son _died_. You can't be his son, because his son is dead."

I was severely confused by that. "But didn't you say-?"

Neah nodded, understanding completely what I was trying to get at. "Exactly. Marian's son is dead, but at the same time, you are undoubtedly his son. So either they had a baby they never told me about, or you somehow managed to survive the fire that killed you." He suddenly laughed and went back to messing with me. "Which, given how many times you've cheated death in the last few years, really doesn't seem all that impossible."

I frowned at that. Neah was apparently completely convinced that everything he'd just told me was true. Which from my perspective meant that it must be true; Neah had no reason to lie to me. So not only was Cross my father, but my mother was his wife. I hadn't been abandoned because I was illegitimate; I'd ended up on the streets because they thought I was dead. "So he has no clue that I'm..."

I couldn't finish the sentence, but Neah understood. "I would be _very_ surprised if Marian knows that you're his kid." His smile faded to an uncomfortable grimace. "When I knew him back then, Marian didn't drink."

That shocked me to the core. The fact that there was a time when Cross _wasn't_ an alcoholic was even more impossible than me being his kid. Neah smiled at my reaction, but it fell quickly. "That started not long after the fire. If he knew that you were his son, he wouldn't have had a reason for drinking anymore."

I had long suspected that Cross drank to forget something, but I never would have guessed that that something was the death of his wife and child. But I wasn't given the time to process that. Neah was done with the heavy conversation and started up with the teasing I'd expected from the beginning.

.x.x.

While Allen did his best to change the subject, Artemis decided it was time for a very serious conversation with Crowned Clown. She was a little bit pissed off by everything Neah had just revealed. "You lied to us."

Knowing exactly what she meant, Crowned Clown sighed. "I didn't lie; I just left that part out."

When she started arguing with him, he sighed again. "Look. This wasn't just your idea, Artemis. This was something that _I_ wanted you to do. It was in _my_ best interest to not tell you that your reasoning had flaws. If I had told you that my accommodator had an exorcist for a father and still ended up on the streets, you wouldn't have agreed to help me get Allen pregnant. Besides, Apollo was being enough of a wet blanket on his own; you didn't need me piling on."


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: You guys ready for Cross to finally show up?

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Even after Neah had told me the whole story of my parentage, I was still dreading having to see Cross in person. I just could not believe my uncle's assertions that not only would Cross want to know that I was his son, he would consider it good news. To me, this was still about telling the man who had dominated my every move through my early teens that I was biologically related to him. The Cross that I knew would not want to know that he had a kid, even if that kid was already an adult and he no longer had to be responsible for it.

But even though I didn't want to face him, I knew that I had to tell him. If there was even just the slightest chance that Neah was right about me being the son Cross had lost, he had to know. However awkward this may have been for me, I couldn't let him continue to grieve for someone who wasn't dead.

So I decided to tell him right away and get it over with. He was scheduled to arrive at three thirty on Thursday afternoon, so even though I knew that he would probably be late, I sat across from the ark gate in the entry hall and waited for him. It wasn't as long of a wait as I had anticipated, but the fact that I was dreading our upcoming conversation certainly made it feel that way.

I swallowed hard when he stepped through the gate, but the feeble hope I'd had that he'd walk right by me without noticing me vanished as he immediately turned in my direction. I could see him sizing me up, and I squirmed a little in my seat; at least Komui had already told him that I was pregnant, so there was one less awkward conversation we had to have.

From the look on Cross' face, I expected his first words to be a comment about the way my belly filled my lap, but instead what I got was, "Yo. Idiot apprentice. What's with the ankle brace?"

In retrospect, that was exactly what I should have expected him to say. Cross being Cross would try to tease me by ignoring my obvious pregnancy to focus on the insignificant-in-comparison ankle brace. I sighed and answered the question as nonchalantly I could. "I broke my ankle on my last mission, and it hasn't quite healed yet."

He nodded once in understanding before raising an eyebrow at me. "And when exactly was your last mission? I can't imagine they're letting you out of here in your condition."

I snorted at that, and my sarcastic retort was almost automatic. "I'm thirty weeks pregnant with twins. Of course they're not sending me on missions anymore."

His hardened glare faltered, revealing a genuinely shocked expression. "'Twins'?"

Before I could react to how quickly he'd given up on teasing me, he was kneeling in front of me and placing a hand on my belly. The awestruck look on his face was odd, as was the bright smile it morphed into when one of the babies kicked at the spot where his hand was resting. I was uncomfortable with him touching me like that, but I was also incredibly curious as to how long he would play the doting grandfather before growing cold and distant again, so I ignored his hand and started talking about the babies. "That's Naomi; she's the feisty one. We haven't named the other one yet, but she's a little more docile - except when it comes to kicking my bladder."

Cross laughed and moved his fingers, making the baby kick him again. "It's not good to have named one and not the other. Girls get really competitive about that sort of thing."

I shook my head at his warning. "We've only known about the second one for a week. We haven't had time yet to do anything other than brainstorm some ideas."

The hand on my belly froze mid poke, and I knew from the way Cross' expression hardened that the moment of uncharacteristic warmth was over. "Ah, yes. 'We'. How is that boyfriend of yours dealing with this whole situation?"

The threat in his voice was very clear, and it pissed me off a little. "Don't be like that. I know Komui told you that you're here for our wedding. There's no need to blame Kanda for any of this."

Cross scoffed as he got to his feet and straightened out his jacket. "He got you pregnant, Allen. It's my job to make him pay for that."

The words might have made me laugh if things were still the way they used to be and Cross was just my mentor, but that was such a fatherly thing to say that it only served to remind me that he actually was my father. I struggled to come up with a response, but we were interrupted by someone coming into the entrance hall.

Neah walked nonchalantly into the room, and it felt like he had been waiting for that exact moment to make his entrance. And he actually might have been. He had made it very clear that he wanted to be there when I told Cross that I was his son. Unfortunately, my chance to do so without his interference was now gone. "Have you told him yet?"

I could only blush and shake my head, unable to make my mouth work. Cross looked back and forth between us, and it was clear that he was confused as to what there was left to tell him. "Told me what?"

My stomach churned at the question. This was the moment to tell him, but now that it was here, I wanted to go back on my decision. Of course, Neah probably knew that that was what I was thinking, as he quickly spoke up, practically bouncing with excitement. "The Order found Robin. He's still alive."

I braced myself for Cross' reaction, but I was prepared for the wrong one. The look of stunned longing on his face told me that I should have trusted Neah from the beginning, so I prepared myself to finish the story, but before I could do that, Cross did something even more unexpected. He sat down beside me, wrapped his arms around me, buried his face in my shoulder, and started crying. The fact that he immediately focused on me upon hearing that news told me that he had figured the rest out for himself, so I let my mouth fall shut; there was no need to tell him what he already knew.

I had never seen Cross even come close to crying before, so that was more than a little shocking by itself, and to have him crying over me was even more stunning. I had no clue how to respond. But my body was pregnant and full of extra hormones; simply seeing someone cry was pretty much guaranteed to make me cry.

As the tears fell unbidden down my cheeks, Neah shot me a smug smirk. "Told you so."

I scowled at him in response, but it looked anything but fierce with the way I was crying. "Shut up."

Cross reclaimed my attention when his hand brushed through my hair a few times before he settled his palm on my scarred cheek. It was beyond weird to have him touch me so gently and in such an affectionate way. He had stopped crying, but that look of sorrow mixed with joy never faded from his eyes. "How?"

The question was directed at Neah, but I answered it. Now that I knew that Cross did in fact consider this good news, all of my hesitation was gone. I was still apprehensive about him being my father, but he hadn't rejected me, so I could allow myself to relax a little. "I wouldn't tell Komui who got me pregnant, so he devised a different way to find out, and while he was running his test, he discovered that you're my father. Neah filled in the rest of the details."

As he nodded in understanding, the hand on my cheek moved, but instead of pulling away like I expected and wanted, his fingers started tracing the lines of my scar. I clenched my jaw to keep from flinching at the out of character display of affection; despite knowing that he wasn't upset at learning he was my father, I was still terrified of Cross. But his next question seemed to say that he understood why I was still scared of him. "And how are you coping?"

I shook my head and pulled his hand away from my face; it was just too uncomfortable having him touch me so gently. "It's been a rough few days. Learning that you're my father on top of everything else that's been going on around here lately has been a little stressful."

A snort of derision from the doorway made me stop talking and look up, even though I knew exactly who had just shown up. "That's quite the understatement, Moyashi."

"No one asked you, Bakanda." I shot him a dirty look and turned back towards Cross, only to be met with one of those looks he frequently used to bully me when I was a child. I briefly wondered if I'd been wrong to expect him to treat me differently now that he knew that I was Robin, but this was a look that told me to stop lying to him, and I could only imagine that I would know that look just as well had I actually been raised as his son.

I sighed and did what Cross wanted. I answered his original question honestly, even though I knew he wouldn't like the answer. "Look, in the last few weeks, I've had to deal with my broken ankle not healing properly, rumors about my promiscuity, learning that I'm carrying twins, learning that Crowned Clown caused my pregnancy, moving rooms, planning my wedding, and General Teidoll finding out that I'm carrying Kanda's children. They're all very stressful things on their own, but even added together, they don't compare to learning that you are my biological father. I'm coping the only way I know how, by pretending nothing has changed. Thinking about it has only given me a panic attack that landed me in the infirmary overnight for observation, so I've been doing everything I can to _not_ think about it."

Kanda let out another derisive snort. "Thinking was never your strong suit, anyway."

I shot him a glare for the insult, but before I could actually come up with a retort, I found myself lifted from my seat and into a pair of arms that usually only carried me when I'd been injured. Well, technically, I _was_ injured, but it was still weird to have Cross pick me up like that. When I looked up at Cross, he was scowling angrily at Kanda. "We're going to go talk somewhere private. _Don't_ follow us."

He turned and stalked out of the room before I could catch Kanda's reaction. I wanted to know where Cross was taking me, but I was also mortified at being carried like that, so I pressed the issue. "You don't have to carry me. I can walk."

Cross laughed but otherwise ignored my comment, and he didn't put me down until we were inside his room. I took a seat on the red velvet couch, trying to ignore the fact that the last time I was in this room was after Cross had been shot with his own weapon; the blood had been cleaned up and the window had been repaired, but it still brought back memories of a very dark time in my life.

Cross sat down beside me, stiff and uncomfortable. "You said that Neah told you about Robin. Did he also tell you about-?"

It wasn't hard to guess where he was going with that question. "My mother? He did."

When Cross looked sharply up at me, I shot him a dark smirk. "It's almost weirder to picture you married than it is to picture you with a kid."

The comment made Cross laugh, and that eased some of the tension that had settled around us. And when the moment passed, one of his hands brushed into my hair in a gentle and loving way and the other came to rest on my swollen belly. "I am sorry for everything I put you through, Allen. You reminded me so much of what I had lost that I just couldn't handle it. And I took all of that out on you. It never even occurred to me that the reason you reminded me so much of him was because you were him."

The apology surprised me, but nowhere near as much as his next words did. "How can I possibly make it up to you?"

I had no clue how to respond to that. It was such a strange and unexpected question. "Well, for starters, you can leave Kanda alone. We're getting married tomorrow; I don't need you to protect me from him."

Cross laughed at my request before fixing me with a fierce scowl. "I can't do that, Allen. What if he-"

I cut him off with a snort. "Then I'll change my mind and let you beat the crap out of him. But until then, I want you to be nice to him. Got it?"


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: I was originally planning for this flashback to take place after their wedding, but since the flashback is finished and the wedding is not, it's going to get posted now. Also, this flashback is a little different from the others: it got really long, so it's two chapters instead of one. The second half will be the next chapter of this story that I post.

This takes place between Phantom Thief G and the stuff with Alma.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

~Three and a Half Years Earlier~

While I was a little leery of the actual content of this mission, the sensitive nature of it meant that it required a small team. Which meant that Link had to stay at headquarters, and that we only had one finder. That in turn meant that I was basically alone with Kanda. So while the mission itself may not have been the greatest, I couldn't help but enjoy it. Any time spent alone with Kanda was precious, and time spent with him outside of the bedroom was even more so.

We had such different morning routines that we were usually able to stay out of each other's way. And I was thankful for that for two reasons. One was that I didn't have to worry about pissing him off before his morning meditation was finished, but the other was a far more recent concern: the Fourteenth. Seeing its shadow in my reflection continued to unnerve me, and I did not want Kanda to see me shaken.

So when he walked in on me in the bathroom that morning, I put on the bravest face I could so that he wouldn't see that anything was bothering me. It must not have worked though, as he did nothing but stare at me the entire time he brushed his hair and tied it up. And I _know_ he was intentionally taking longer with that than he usually did. It was really creepy.

But then I realized that he wasn't staring at me, but at my reflection...

Turning my focus to the mirror, I scowled at the black shadow that followed me everywhere. Was it really possible that Kanda could see it too?

Steeling myself, I looked at Kanda once again and tried to act nonchalant. "Whatcha staring at?"

He blinked and that look was gone. Stalking back into the room, he tossed his ponytail over his shoulder and grumbled out something barely audible. "It's nothing."

Following after him, I pressed for an answer. "That wasn't 'nothing'. What's really going on?"

When he once again avoided my question, I sat down heavily on the end of the bed; his lack of an actual response confirmed my fears. Pulling my knees to my chin, I wrapped my arms around my legs, trying to give myself support for what I had to say next. "This is about the shadow of the Fourteenth, isn't it?"

Kanda immediately whirled around and faced me, his cobalt eyes full of shock. While he struggled to collect himself, I sighed and started babbling. "I've been driving myself crazy trying to pretend I don't see it, but it's everywhere! I can't get away from it! And no one else knows it's there, so I can't _say_ anything about it, or else they'll think he's starting to take over and lock me up. But now it turns out that you could see it all along! I'm not crazy, and I could have been talking to you about it this whole time! Why didn't you tell me you could see it?"

While I struggled to control my breathing and tried to pretend that I wasn't nearly hysterical, Kanda sat down calmly beside me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. The action was stiff, but it was still comforting. "I didn't say anything because I didn't know that _you_ could see it. I see lots of things that aren't really there, and I thought that this was one of them."

That had to be one of the most personal things Kanda had ever said about himself. I wanted to respect that, but I was so curious that I couldn't stop myself from questioning him. "'Lots of things'? Like what?"

The answer he gave me had me so stunned that I almost stopped breathing. "Like the lotus in the hourglass in my bedroom."

It felt like my jaw dropped all the way to the floor. "But if that's a hallucination, how come I can see it?"

He was silent for a while, and I began to wonder if he was actually going to respond to my question. "I don't know for sure, but I think that it's the same reason why I can see your illusion. It's because we love each other."

I blinked at him. His explanation made perfect sense, but it was something else that had caught my attention. I had first said those words to him well over a year ago. Since then, he'd implied that he felt the same way, but this was the first time he'd actually said the words. I tried to keep it together, but despite my best efforts, the tears still fell.

Kanda scoffed, but he didn't tease me for being overly emotional like I expected him to. Instead, he changed the subject. The arm around me lost its stiffness as he leaned closer and tightened his hold on me. "For the record, that lotus represents my life force. I'm going to die when it wilts completely."

That set me off again, but this time my tears made Kanda smirk darkly. "And now you know how I feel whenever you talk about losing to the Fourteenth."

.x.x.

I was a little bummed that the people in this town actually adhered to the rules and wouldn't let minors into the bar. I'd been looking forward to getting some poker playing in from the moment our search for the Innocence led us there, and it was quite disappointing that I wouldn't be getting the chance to play tonight.

I was also nervous because while I was skilled at getting information out of people - and _drunk_ people were especially easy to handle - Kanda's people skills were severely lacking. It wasn't that I didn't trust him to do his very best for the sake of our mission - after all, Kanda never gave less than one hundred percent - but I couldn't help worrying that he'd do or say something that would actually make our job harder.

It was both shocking and predictable that Kanda was completely plastered when he returned to the inn that night. There truly was no other way that that could have gone. It was hilarious seeing him like that.

Until we were left alone.

Drunk Kanda was the polar opposite of Sober Kanda when it came to expressing his feelings. He used my real name more in the next half hour than he had in the entire course of our relationship so far. He also said the words "I love you" to me without any prompting whatsoever. It was all incredibly touching, but what I was most thankful for was that this had happened _after_ he'd confessed. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that these were his true feelings, which meant that I didn't have to wonder if it was the alcohol that made him say them.

I'd been watching Kanda open up to me little by little over the last eighteen months, and this was like a glimpse into our future. Someday he was actually going to be like this when he was sober. Someday he was going to be comfortable enough with me to completely trust me with his feelings. It gave me so much hope. I wasn't wasting my time by loving him.

I hadn't really wanted to have sex with Kanda that night - I'd spent too much time with Master Cross to like being that close to a drunk person - but when Kanda kissed me after proclaiming his love for me for the fourth time that night, I was completely unable to resist him.

His mouth tasted like the whiskey he'd been drinking all night, making the kiss nowhere near as good as it should have been. But he responded to my gentle nudging, moving his lips down to my collarbone, where he was very enthusiastic about marking me with a hickey. I tried to take control of the situation, but Kanda continued to act like his lips were fused to my skin. Settling for pulling out his hair tie, I focused all of my excess attention on the silky blue strands that fell loose around us.

By the time Kanda moved to a different spot on my neck, my brain had gone fuzzy. All I could think about was how good it felt to have him that close to me and how much better the sex would feel. His hands moved under my shirt, teasing my lower back with his fingertips and effectively distracting me from what came next. In one swift motion, my sleep shirt was pulled over my head and tossed in the corner.

I responded by fumbling with the buttons of Kanda's jacket, but he threw me down on the bed before I could open any of them. He was on top of me in an instant, growling like a wild animal as he ran his tongue from my navel to my throat, which he began to attack again. I had to bite back a scream when he nipped at a particularly sensitive spot, and I gave up on trying to undress him. My pants had grown far too tight and they needed to come off. It was difficult to squirm out of them while Kanda was pinning me down, but this was something I'd had a lot of practice doing.

The second he noticed I was naked, Kanda let go of my neck. He sat back on his heels, and in less time than he'd undressed me, he'd stripped off his jacket and shirt and tossed them aside. I very nearly forgot what we were doing as I took in the sight of him; we'd been together for a long time now, but his bare chest was still one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful things I'd ever seen. His well-toned muscles were far more refined than any sculpture in any museum.

I was snapped out of my stupor when I heard Kanda laugh; it was a genuinely happy laugh, and that was just as rare as those things he'd been saying earlier. Looking away from his muscled chest, I finally noticed that the rest of him was naked too. And that was even better than just his bare chest. God I had the hottest boyfriend on the planet.

Kanda wasted no time in kneeling between my legs and hooking my left ankle over his shoulder. His first finger was inside my hole before I even realized that that was what he was after. He may have been drunk, but I was the one who was out of it.

He stretched my passage with an urgency I'd never felt before. The movement of his fingers was rough and sloppy, but when he hit that spot inside me, the rational part of my brain that was worried he would hurt me by rushing through this finally shut up. Having found what he was looking for, Kanda's motions became slow and deliberate. He poked and prodded at that spot until my moans became cries and kept it up until my cries became incoherent gurgles. Just when it felt like I couldn't take another second of the glorious pleasure he was inflicting on me, he pulled his fingers out of me.

I whined at the loss, but before I could snap out of the haze and become aware of my surroundings again, my legs had been spread even further and Kanda had pushed his length inside me. I have no clue how long we spent joined together like that. Every single one of his thrusts rammed my prostate dead on and my body was filled with so much pleasure that I lost track of everything but the shaft moving inside me. I came quickly after that, but it wasn't until Kanda had milked a second orgasm out of me that I finally returned to my senses.

The blanket below me was damp with my sweat and the fluids trickling out of my hole. Kanda had collapsed beside me, and for a moment I thought he had passed out, but then the arms around me tightened, pulling me close to his chest. We lay together in silence. I don't know what he was thinking about; it wasn't odd for him to be completely quiet, making it nearly impossible to guess his train of thought. So I let my thoughts drift to random things and focused on enjoying the feeling of my back pressed against his strong chest. I loved how perfectly we fit together.

I was on the verge of falling asleep when I noticed that Kanda was doing something really weird. He was rubbing my stomach. It was a gentle, almost soothing action, with nothing remotely sexual in it, and that was just as weird as the placement of his hand. He was clearly thinking about something, so I decided to satisfy my curiosity and ask him about it. "What're you thinking about, Yuu?"

The answer I got made me immediately regret asking. "I wish you were a woman."

Not having a single clue how to respond to that, I laughed it off so that I wouldn't start crying. "You're so drunk, Bakanda. Go to sleep."

He snorted at me, but he was out as soon as he closed his eyes. Sleep did not come so quickly for me. I was too distracted with wondering what on earth he'd meant by wishing I was a woman. I knew he loved me, but it was hard to get past the idea that he might be thinking about leaving me.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: As promised, here's the second half of the flashback.

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As much as I hated it, my artificial body did have a few perks. Most of them had something to do with Allen, but right now, the one I was most thankful for was the lack of a hangover from the drinking I'd done the night before. Normally, I wouldn't have had anywhere near that much to drink, but we needed that information, and knowing that I wouldn't be hungover in the morning had made it an easy choice. The rest of the night was a bit of a blur, but I recalled the important things - namely my body tangled with my Moyashi's. Allen had enjoyed that I was drunk and that made it even more worth it.

But something had apparently changed between then and now. For as happy as he was last night, Allen was even more depressed this morning. I wanted to ignore his bad mood, but I also couldn't stand the fact that his smile wasn't genuine, so I prodded. "What's wrong, Moyashi?"

For a moment it looked like he was going to brush me off, but then he sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, nervously drumming his fingers on his knees. He kept his gaze on his hands as he answered my question with a question. "What do you remember from last night?"

I blinked at the unexpected subject, trying to remember what had happened after I'd returned to the inn. My hangover may have been cured, but my memory was definitely still impaired. And I had apparently done or said something last night that was making the Moyashi act so strange. "Not much other than that we had sex. Why?"

Allen sighed once more, his fingers tightly gripping the fabric of his pants, and there was something sad in the action that put me more on edge than I already was. "You told me that you wished I was a girl."

 _Oh._ I didn't remember saying it, but I knew exactly what I had meant by that comment, as it was something I thought about quite often. I spoke up and interrupted Allen's self-deprecating babbling before it could start. "Not like _that_ , Moyashi. This has nothing to do with your gender or me wanting to be straight or whatever depressing shit it is that you're thinking. It's just that, if you were female, we could have kids."

He finally looked up at me, his silver eyes full of confusion. I didn't like that he didn't understand what I was getting at, but he no longer looked like he wanted to kill himself, so that was a major improvement. "'Kids'? As in: a baby? Together?"

I nodded slowly, wary of how he'd react. I hadn't ever planned to tell him about this, but the cat was out of the bag now. I may have trusted Allen more than I trusted anyone else, but there were still some things that I was just not ready to share with him. Mostly because I was worried they'd ruin our relationship. I was more than a little upset with myself for getting so drunk that I told the Moyashi about this one. "Exactly. I can picture it so vividly. Your belly, swollen with my child, while another runs around being simultaneously adorable and annoying. Just like its mother."

The Moyashi made a face at me for the comment, but instead of getting angry like I expected, he pushed the subject aside. "Ignoring the impossibility of what you're suggesting, this is a conversation for a few years down the road. You're forgetting that I'm three years younger than you are. I'm only seventeen. I'm still a child myself. It's much too soon to be talking about having children together."

.x.x.

It had taken all of my courage to ask Kanda to explain what he'd meant last night. I was beyond terrified of his answer. But I needed to know. If he was thinking about breaking up with me, we needed to get that out in the open. It was going to kill me, but I still needed to hear him say it.

Instead, I learned that he wanted to have a baby with me. Kanda wanted to get me pregnant.

That was not at all what I was expecting to hear from him. Firstly, because it was an actual, honest answer and I had expected him to brush me off; I wouldn't have let him, but it was still what I had expected him to do. Secondly, this was clearly something that he wanted with all of his heart and soul. He hadn't just decided on a whim that he wanted a child; he had thought this through and genuinely desired to have a baby with me. Thirdly, the idea of me being pregnant was absurd. I was a man, I couldn't be a mother. It was completely crazy to think of raising a child with Kanda, let alone actually carrying it myself.

Yet that was what I found myself doing. The mental image of being pregnant with Kanda's child was one I couldn't shake. I knew it was beyond impossible - I was _male_ for goodness sake! - but there was just something about it that called to me. I had no clue whether or not getting pregnant was anywhere near what I wanted to do with my life, and I knew I wasn't anywhere near old enough to have a kid of my own, but I knew in the depths of my heart that if the opportunity ever arose, I would take it. If it ever became possible for me to have a child with Kanda, I would let him get me pregnant.

That thought scared me, but it also left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. The fact that Kanda was thinking about starting a family with me was incredibly touching. Kanda was a live for the moment type of person, and for him to be planning a future with me, I had to be more than just a boyfriend to him. Instead of getting dumped, I had basically gotten a marriage proposal.

.x.x.

While the lovers went about their mission that day, their Innocence fragments held a very serious conversation. It started with Crowned Clown apologizing to Mugen. "I didn't know your Yuu wanted children. I wouldn't have pushed you so hard about letting him be with Allen if I had known."

Mugen just laughed it off. "Didn't you hear him? He doesn't want kids: he wants _Allen's_ kids. And that's never going to happen because they're both men, so it doesn't matter in the end."

Crowned Clown's agreement died as a thought occurred to him. "Actually... if you're up for meddling in our accommodators' lives, that's exactly the kind of thing that we could make happen."

"You're suggesting that we use our powers to get Allen pregnant?" It was clear from her tone that Mugen thought he was crazy. "In case you've forgotten, he's currently going through the process of awakening as a Noah."

The silent smirk she got in response made her punch him. "You know something, don't you?!"

Crowned Clown pouted over her violent reaction. "Look, you know as well as I do that the Fourteenth Noah is not a threat to our cause. And I certainly would not have allowed his memories to be placed inside my host if he were. I can't tell you any more than that. All you need to know is that Allen is going to come out of this just fine."

Mugen glared at him for the lack of an actual answer, but she decided to drop it and return to their original subject. "Then you're not talking about getting Allen pregnant right now."

He shook his head. "I'm not. Besides, he doesn't want to talk about it again until he's an adult. And that's good: it'll give us time."

She knew he was referring to something other than the impending Noah awakening, but she couldn't figure out what that was. "Time for what?"

Crowned Clown rolled his eyes at the question. "To find someone willing to help us."

The statement had Mugen very confused. "Why do we need help with this?"

He looked at her like she was stupid; the answer to her question was incredibly obvious. "They're not going to be allowed to keep the baby if it's not an accommodator."

Mugen sighed heavily, finally getting what Crowned Clown was driving at. "And if Allen's baby is taken from him, he's going to do something stupid."

"Exactly. The only way this has a happy ending is if we can find someone who is willing to bond with the baby."

She snorted at him. "Or we could just not get Allen pregnant. It's not like this is something _he_ wants to do anyway. There's no need to turn everyone's lives upside down just because my Yuu has a ridiculous fantasy."

Crowned Clown sighed and gave her a look. "It's not ridiculous if it's possible, and we've already established that it's possible. Besides, you know that the one thing Allen wants most in the world is a family of his own. The idea of getting pregnant may have only been in his head for a couple hours, but he's already made up his mind that he'll do it if he's given the chance. Which leaves only one question: how badly does your Yuu want a baby?"

"Point taken." After a tense silence, she sighed and gave in. "Alright. You win. Let's do this. Let's find someone who can help us knock up Allen."


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Sorry about the lack of update last month. I had a really tough time getting this chapter written. :/ Anyway, this story is nearing its end, so hopefully I'll finish writing it before I run out of chapters to post. Depending on how long the couple remaining plot points end up being, there's about six chapters and an epilogue left. In the meantime, it's time for Teidoll to finally "apologize"...

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

After Allen was carried off by Cross, I didn't see him again until breakfast the next morning. I wanted to go find him to make sure he was alright - especially when I didn't see him in the cafeteria at dinner time - but I knew that in his hormonal state, checking up on him would only piss him off, and on the off chance that it didn't upset him, it undoubtedly would piss Cross off, so I decided that it was better to wait until they were done talking to satisfy my curiosity. Their personal business wasn't worth risking my health over. Besides, if the Moyashi really did need my help, he would know to send Timcanpy to get me.

Ever since he'd gotten pregnant, I worried about Allen a lot more than I used to. From the moment we had met, I had always been irrationally concerned for his safety - though that concern had become much more rational once I realized that I was in love with him - but that feeling was nothing compared to what I felt now that he was carrying our children inside his body. I needed all three of them to be safe, happy, and healthy, even if it was just General Cross that I was protecting them from. Part of me knew that I was being overprotective because of the way everyone had rejected the Moyashi over his pregnancy, but I couldn't bring myself to care about just how emotional I was being. Being in a relationship with Allen for the last five years had caused me to become much more in touch with my feelings than I used to be, and that was perfectly acceptable when it meant that I got to be with the one person I cared about more than myself. So long as I remained rational and didn't act on my emotions when I knew that they were irrational, no one but Allen would know how much he'd changed me, and going to check on the Moyashi while he was talking with Cross definitely would have counted as being irrational.

Like I suspected, I didn't have anything to worry about. Allen and Cross had simply talked until the Moyashi fell asleep, and Cross had left him on the couch because he didn't want to move him. And given how hormonal Allen currently was, I didn't blame him for that. I'd had my head bitten off more than once for disturbing him while he was comfortable; being pregnant with twins made for an easily irritated Moyashi.

One look at the Moyashi, and it was clear that Allen felt better after their conversation, which proved that I was right about him needing to talk things through with Cross. So even though I had slept incredibly poorly without him by my side, it was worth the insomnia to see him finally relaxed and accepting of the fact that Cross was his biological father. I could only imagine what they had talked about, but if it was anything like the conversation that Cross and I had had when he first found out that Allen and I were sleeping together, it was all things Allen had needed to hear for a long time.

But as much as I wanted to know what they'd discussed, I never did find out. Allen didn't volunteer the details and I wasn't going to pry; this was between him and his father. I knew that they had talked about me simply from the begrudgingly polite way Cross was now treating me, but beyond that, I could only guess, and I wasn't curious enough to try to do that.

Breakfast that morning was surprisingly quiet given that Allen and I would be getting married in just a couple hours. I expected there to be more of a fuss about our upcoming wedding, especially since both Lavi and Lenalee were crazy about that kind of thing, but no one even mentioned it. The meal passed in relative peace, even with both Cross and Neah joining the four of us at our table. It was almost pleasant. But then Teidoll arrived and any semblance of normal conversation went straight out the window.

The crazy old man immediately started fawning over Allen, who blushed and shied away at the invasion of his personal space. But, as was typical for him, Teidoll didn't notice that he was being overbearing and just continued to babble on excitedly. I knew Allen would never stand up for himself and ask him to stop, so I debated stepping in and doing it for him, even though that sort of thing wasn't something I'd normally do; I was torn between protecting my Moyashi and doing something that I knew would turn Teidoll's attentions on me. However, before I could reach a decision, Cross suddenly burst out laughing. "What the hell happened to your face?"

We all turned to look at him, wondering what he was talking about, but that quickly became clear from the way he was pointing rather rudely at Teidoll while practically falling over from how hard he was laughing. "I didn't think it was possible, but you look even more ridiculous without the mustache."

I couldn't help the satisfied smirk that crossed my face as I took in the sight of Teidoll with his bandaged nose, bald upper lip, and cracked glasses. And while I was distracted with my amusement, Lavi was quick to jump in and explain what had happened to Cross, even though he wasn't there and hadn't seen it happen. "I can't believe you missed that, General! It was awesome! Yuu punched him right in the face in the middle of lunch on Monday!"

Following Lavi's explanation, Teidoll frowned and muttered under his breath, but we all heard his complaint anyway. "And he still hasn't apologized for doing it."

I felt no need to apologize to him, especially when he was acting so childish about it. I may have acted violently, but _he_ was the one in the wrong here. "And you still haven't apologized for what you said about the Moyashi."

Cross turned to look at me with a lone eyebrow raised in curiosity. "What'd he say?"

Before I could respond, Allen jumped into the conversation, and his words made it clear that he was trying to stop the conversation before anything happened. "Nothing that needs to be repeated."

I had had far too much of the Moyashi's self-sacrificing attitude over the last few months, so I immediately tried to argue with him. I sort of understood how he could have been ignoring his own feelings in order to protect me and the babies, but our relationship was public now; there was no more need for that sort of thing. Besides, the people we were sitting with were all people who agreed with me that Allen needed to stand up for himself more, so I was confident that I was going to win this argument. "But he called you a tart, Moyashi. That's something he should have to answer for."

The Moyashi just rolled his eyes at me. "I've been called worse to my face by everyone at this table, including you. We don't need to keep talking about this. It isn't worth getting upset over."

Having caught the anger in Cross' eyes when I revealed what Teidoll had said, I now knew beyond a doubt that I wasn't the only one upset over this, so I continued to push. "I think your father disagrees with that, Moyashi. I know I do."

If Allen said something in response, I didn't hear it; my attention was captured by other things. Cross had stood from the table and was now in Teidoll's personal space. In the blink of an eye, Teidoll was bent over the table with his left arm twisted painfully behind him. Cross snarled as he pinned the old artist in place. "If you know what's good for you, you'll apologize immediately."

Teidoll caved to the demand, but despite the coercion, his apology was sincere. "I am very sorry for what I said, Allen. I didn't realize that I was speaking about the mother of my grandchildren, and I definitely wouldn't have said anything if I had known that."

But the apology just made Cross angrier, and he tightened his grip on Teidoll's arm. "Excuse me? _Your_ grandchildren?"

The question clearly upset Teidoll and he shoved his way out of Cross' hold. He looked composed and unshaken, though the slight grimace on his face and the way he was cradling his left arm seemed to suggest that he'd dislocated his shoulder in the process of escaping. "Yes, they're _my_ grandchildren. They're my son's!"

Cross stepped back into Teidoll's personal space, trying to intimidate him with the difference in their heights. "No, they're _my_ son's. You're just a crazy old man who thinks his apprentice is his son. He doesn't even like you."

The comment made me snicker, but my reaction only made Teidoll cry, which in turn killed any amusement I was feeling. The last thing I needed right now was a weepy Teidoll clinging to me and demanding that I admit that I cared about him. Fortunately, Cross was still angry and continued to shout at him, preventing him from focusing on me.

Unfortunately, I still ended up with someone clinging to me.

The more Cross yelled, the closer Allen scooted towards me, and it wasn't long at all before he was practically glued to my side. I managed to peel my attention away from the arguing grandfathers, curious as to why the Moyashi was so close to me. The look on his face made it painfully clear that he was scared - he was practically cowering in fear - and it didn't take a genius to figure out that it was Cross that was scaring him. The Moyashi was terrified of his mentor, and one heart-to-heart conversation with the man was obviously not enough to erase that fear. Allen must have been flashing back to some trauma from his apprenticeship, remembering the last time he saw Cross that angry.

Allen's reaction to the argument in front of us put me in quite the dilemma. I was enjoying watching Cross lay into Teidoll, but my Moyashi needed me to make the fight stop before it escalated any further. My concern quickly beat out my own personal desires; what was best for Allen was also what was best for our unborn babies, as his stress had quite an effect on his pregnancy.

I leaned down and left a quick kiss on the top of the Moyashi's head, and then I sighed heavily, bracing myself to interrupt the fight. What I was about to do was probably going to be interpreted very differently from how I meant it. "Hey, Cross. You should probably stop now."

Cross actually stopped yelling when I addressed him, but like I anticipated, he had clearly misunderstood why I was interrupting. "Really? _**You**_ want me to stop? _**You**_? Shouldn't you be all for this? _You're_ the one who broke his nose."

I clicked my tongue at that, trying not to get caught up in the misunderstanding and lash out at him. "This has nothing to do with that. You can break his nose again for all I care. But _this_ ," I gestured at Allen, who was now in tears, "is something _you_ need to fix now before it gets any worse."

He just stared at me, either not liking or not understanding what I was telling him to do, and that was frustrating. "If _you_ don't calm him down yourself, right now, he's _always_ going to be afraid of you. Now, I know your parenting style isn't going to be anything like the old man's, but I highly doubt that you actually want your own son to live in fear of you. He was not exaggerating when he told you that he ended up in the infirmary because he was freaking out over this."

That challenging look on Cross' face disappeared, and he immediately dropped his hold on Teidoll's collar in favor of focusing on Allen. The Moyashi, in his turmoil, had remained oblivious to our conversation, so when Cross brushed a hand into his hair trying to calm him down, Allen flinched away violently. Cross masked the hurt look that crossed his face with a scowl, but I still caught it, proving that I was right about how much he cared about Allen. He pulled away from the Moyashi, aiming that disappointed scowl at me. "Are you sure this is about me? He usually reacts very differently to me."

I snorted at the hidden accusation. "He's also pregnant. _Everything_ makes him cry. He even cries when he's pissed off."

"I do not." The Moyashi's objection was clearly reflexive, as he went right back to crying into my shoulder.

Cross studied us for a moment before he suddenly started barking orders at Allen. "Oi! Idiot apprentice! Cease that at once! That is no way for a grown man to behave! Now knock it off and get yourself together!"

Allen immediately snapped to attention; his tears halted but that only drew more attention to how scared he was. He looked ready to bolt, clearly preparing himself to carry out Cross' upcoming orders as soon as possible, but before he could move from his seat, the general placed his hands on his shoulders, holding him in place. "Now that I have your attention..."

I had been halfway out of my seat, ready to reprimand Cross for shouting at my Moyashi like that, but the sudden shift in his behavior made me relax. He had only been pretending to be pissed in order to get Allen to stop crying. The next words Cross spoke were whispered so low that I couldn't hear them, which was probably on purpose if they were as private as I suspected they were, and by the time he was done talking, the Moyashi was crying again.

What followed next was the expected chaos that came when the others realized that Cross actually was Allen's father. And once they were finally calmed down, breakfast was over and it was time for our wedding. The next time we sat down for a meal, the Moyashi and I would be married.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Wedding time!

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

I had been looking forward to my wedding from the moment Komui told me that I was actually going to be allowed to have one, but that excitement died completely once I was told what the ceremony was going to consist of. Because my wedding was mandated by Central, so were _all_ the details of the ceremony. Rather than having a freeform ceremony out on the lawn like I pictured, where I might have possibly let Lenalee talk me into wearing a white dress, or even something Japanese to honor my future husband's heritage, I was being forced to have a traditional Catholic wedding ceremony, complete with Mass and communion. In Latin.

It was the least 'me' wedding I could have possibly come up with, but I didn't dare complain. I didn't want to risk Central changing their minds and deciding to not let me get married at all. If I was going to have a wedding, I was going to have to do it their way, and that's just how it was.

I tried to find silver linings - a strict religious ceremony meant that Lenalee would definitely not be putting me in a dress - but that approach didn't really help. What got me through it was constantly reminding myself that I would be married to Kanda when it was over.

My general's jacket didn't even sort of close over my baby bump, forcing me to wear it open, which only drew attention to my rather large belly. And while that normally didn't bother me, as I was actually quite proud of my pregnancy, in the context of a strict religious ceremony, I was very self-conscious of the fact that I had gotten pregnant out of wedlock, even if it was the Innocence that had put me in that situation. It certainly didn't help that Yuu looked as impressive and imposing as ever in his jacket with Mugen strapped at his hip. He looked gorgeous, while I looked fat and disheveled.

Cross walked me down the aisle - which was definitely a highlight even with the uncertain state of our relationship - but the ceremony went downhill from there. The little chapel was packed full of people, as everyone who was currently at headquarters wanted to observe our wedding, and aside from a select handful of people, I knew that they were all there because they didn't believe that Kanda and I had been together for years. So I had to stand - up at the front, with everyone staring judgmentally at me - while a priest droned on and on in a language that I didn't even sort of understand. It was incredibly boring and exhausting, so it wasn't at all surprising that my attention wavered. Except that my thoughts did not wander to good things.

I had never spent any time in the Order's chapel before, and for good reason. The chapel looked much like the inside of every other church or cathedral I'd been in, and standing there, with nothing to do but wait for the priest to finish talking, I could only think about why I hated churches - especially Catholic churches. Technically, I was Catholic, but that was just because I had to be Catholic to be an exorcist, or some other similar nonsense. I didn't really know what I believed as far as that sort of thing went, as I had far too many other things to do and think about that were far more important, but I knew that if I were to stick a label on my religion, it definitely wouldn't be Catholic. Not after having a priest throw holy water on me when I was six. Or when I was seven, and the priest who would supposedly feed the homeless instead tried to purify the demon in my arm with fire. And of course, neither of those priests were as bad as the one who wanted to burn me at the stake.

I was brought out of the dark thoughts by Kanda squeezing my hand ever so slightly, and even though I didn't dare turn to look at him, I knew that he had done it on purpose because he'd sensed that my thoughts had drifted to a bad place. He was really good at reading me like that, and while I normally found it annoying, today, I was grateful for it. Today was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life, and I should not be dwelling on traumatic events from my childhood during my wedding.

I tried to focus on the priest, but I still didn't understand what he was saying, so my mind inevitably wandered off once again. And like last time, the moment my thoughts became dark, Yuu was squeezing my hand and gently reminding me that he was at my side. Only this time, the gentle squeeze was followed by a rather rough kick from one of the babies in my womb. Like their father, my unborn daughters didn't like it when I depressed myself, and they were trying to do their part to snap me out of it. I very nearly laughed out loud at the thought of just how strongly these babies were taking after Kanda, but at the last second, I remembered where I was and managed to keep the very inappropriate reaction in.

The wandering of my thoughts came to an abrupt end when I heard a whole lot of shuffling behind me. A quick glance told me that everyone was moving from their seats in the pews to kneeling on the floor, and the change in their positions was quite confusing to me. Especially when I turned my attention on Kanda and saw that he was also kneeling like the others were. I looked to the priest, trying to figure out what was going on, only to be met with a very disapproving stare. It was painfully clear that I was expected to kneel like the others, though I had no clue why because I hadn't been paying attention to the ceremony; I had no clue if he had even spoken in English to tell them what to do.

When I didn't move, the priest's stare deepened to a scowl. "You're supposed to kneel."

I knew that I was supposed to remain silent through the ceremony until it came time for vows and I was prompted to speak, but I was so completely dumbfounded by what I was being asked to do that I found the words slipping out anyway. "Really? You expect me to kneel in my condition? I can barely stand. How the fuck am I supposed to kneel?"

The priest just continued his disapproving stare, not even flinching at my outburst. I was starting to get upset with the whole situation; I was seven months pregnant and had a broken ankle, they should have known going into this that kneeling was something that I couldn't do, yet here the priest was, demanding that I do it. And I could tell from the way he was scowling at me that he was judging for being a pregnant man; after all, that was a stare I'd gotten quite used to seeing in the last seven months, and I recognized the disgust in it easily. The priest clearly didn't want to be performing this ceremony, which only upset me further.

But before I got too worked up, Kanda was standing in front of me, gently brushing a lock of hair behind my ear. The tears of frustration pricking at the corners of my eyes vanished the moment his fingers brushed against my skin, the feeling of his touch calming me down immediately. His expression was carefully guarded, like it always was when we were in public, but I could see the mixture of amusement and concern in his eyes. Kanda didn't speak a word, remaining his usual stoic and silent self, but the way his hand moved from my cheek to my shoulder conveyed quite clearly that he wanted to help me. I almost protested, but I knew that Yuu was strong enough to carry me, so I quickly silenced my pride and allowed him to help me so that we could hurry this along. It only took a few seconds for him to help me ease my heavily pregnant body to my knees. The position hurt, but not as much as getting to it had, so I smiled at Yuu, telling him that it was safe to let go of me, and focused on keeping myself balanced now that his hands were no longer supporting me.

Once he was satisfied with how I was kneeling, the priest resumed his talking. The kneeling portion of the ceremony was fortunately brief, ending before the position got to be too painful, and when it was over, Kanda helped me to my feet and held me steady until I regained my balance. The remainder of the ceremony passed quickly, as after that was when the priest switched to speaking in English and I could actually understand what he was saying.

Our vows were traditional and the actual words meant very little to me, but what they stood for was highly significant. These were the words that would bind me to Kanda, making our homosexual relationship official and sanctioned rather than a torrid secret that needed to be kept hidden at all costs. And the pride in Yuu's voice as he said his part was even more important to me than the words he was saying. He wanted this just as much - if not more - than I did, and that meant the world to me.

As the ceremony came to an end, we were instructed to kiss, and the only sound in the room afterwards was Teidoll finally bursting into tears. Though it was just a simple, chaste kiss - the kind that was appropriate for a formal, religious wedding ceremony - that was the first time that Kanda and I had kissed in public, and the people who were watching were all completely stunned by it. The part of me that registered their reaction hoped it meant that they'd finally stop pestering me about my pregnancy and my relationship, but I was focused on other, more important, things.

The silver band around my ring finger felt strange, and it would take some getting used to, but I already loved having a wedding ring. Especially since it was an exact match to the one that Kanda now wore. We were officially married. And for the first time in my pregnancy, I could completely relax. Now that Yuu was officially my husband, I could finally believe, without a single doubt, that I was actually going to be allowed to keep my babies.

.x.x.

By the time I was finally left alone with my new husband, I was angry and frustrated. But all that disappeared when I took in the happy grin on my Moyashi's face. I couldn't help laughing at the way he collapsed on the couch in our new suite - we could finally use it now that we were married - and the exhausted way he plopped there reminded me of what had happened during the ceremony, which just made me laugh more as I joined him on the couch. "I can't believe that you swore in the middle of our wedding."

Allen just pouted at me in response. "It was completely justified. They should have known beforehand that I couldn't kneel and cut that part out of the ceremony."

I snickered as I kissed his forehead. "Relax, Moyashi. I'm just teasing you. I enjoy seeing you loosen up like that."

He sighed and leaned into me. We cuddled in silence for a few minutes, but the Moyashi could never stay quiet for long, so it wasn't all that surprising when he started talking again. "What do you want me to call you now that we're married?"

The question was completely unexpected. "What are you talking about, Moyashi? You don't have to change what you call me just because we're married."

Allen frowned and looked away from me, but that didn't hide the pink that flushed across his face. "Well, it's just that, technically, 'Kanda' is my name now too, so I wasn't sure if you'd want me to keep calling you that or not..."

He trailed off, but it took me a moment to collect myself enough to respond. "You're changing your name?"

The Moyashi nodded once. "I haven't decided if I'm changing it all the way or if I'm just going to hyphenate, but yeah, I'm going to take your name."

"Really? You don't have to, you know that, right?" I wasn't just making sure that he was doing what he wanted and not caving to social convention, I was also trying to convey that I didn't want him to change his name without actually saying those words and crushing him.

But Allen merely smiled disarmingly at me. "I know. But I've also just learned what my birth name is, and given how Central likes to mess with my life, I imagine that they're going to give me quite a lot of grief over that. I can just picture them trying to make me start going by Robin Marian, and while I'm glad to have finally found my parents, I have no interest in taking Cross' last name. Our wedding gives me the chance to change my name, so I'm going to take that chance and make it what _I_ want it to be. And I want to be a Kanda."

That was an excellent point, but it didn't change the fact that I didn't want to have to deal with the annoyances that were sure to arise if we shared a last name. So I tried to get him to change his mind on his own. "You do know that it was Teidoll that named me that, don't you?"

He snorted. "So? It was Master Cross that named me Walker."

"Touché." It was getting annoying how he had answers to every one of my arguments.

Allen laughed, moving my hand from his shoulder to his belly. "Besides, our daughters will be Kanda's, and this way we can really be a family."

"That's sappy, Moyashi." The indirect approach was definitely not working. It was time to be a little less subtle. "What if I don't want you to change your name?"

It was obvious from the way Allen teared up that he had seen through the hypothetical question; he was too good at reading me when I was intentionally trying to hide things from him. "If that's what you really want..."

The disappointment in his voice hurt. And in the end, I caved and we reached a compromise: Allen would hyphenate his last name with mine. That way he still got to take my name like he wanted, but he could still be called Walker by the others, which meant that there would be no annoying teasing or confusion over the both of us sharing a last name.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates last month. I got sick over Thanksgiving and ended up being ill for nearly two weeks. Then, my coworker got arrested, and since he and I were the only ones trained with that computer program, I had to pick up the slack. Plus there was Christmas and family things and ... All in all, December was a crazy month. I still wrote in my spare time, but actually getting online to post things wasn't going to happen. But I'm back now, so let's try to get back in the swing of things.

This chapter is two chapters that weren't long enough to be actual chapters on their own, so to warn you off the bat, the transition between them isn't the smoothest. But that means it's a longer chapter, and there's a (Yullen) lemon in it, so I don't think that's gonna be a problem...

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

Not only was I actually allowed to marry my Moyashi, but they let us go on a honeymoon as well. It was only for a couple days, but it was still an official vacation _away_ from headquarters. That's right, they actually let Allen, in his heavily pregnant state, go out into the real world.

We were given a suite at a hotel in what most people would have regarded as a "picturesque" seaside town, but I wasn't the type to care about things like that. We also never left the room, so I didn't have to pretend to care about it either; neither of us were interested in sightseeing. Allen was too pregnant and obviously male to want to be out in public.

With the exception of meals, which were delivered to our room, Allen and I spent the entire trip in bed together. In fact, once he stripped that first day, the Moyashi didn't put a single article of clothing back on until it was time for us to leave; he wore only his new ring, leaving his naked pregnant body on display. We talked occasionally about our marriage and our upcoming parenthood, but for the most part, we were either asleep or having sex. I took full advantage of the fact that this was potentially the last chance I would get to have him all to myself for quite some time, and I spent as much of that time fucking him as I could.

Personally, it was some of the best sex we'd ever had, but Allen didn't see it that way. He was just too pregnant for the sex to be as good for him as it used to be. That's not to say that he didn't enjoy it - if that were the case, he wouldn't have acted like a tease the entire trip - but it was better for him back when he wasn't so big. He was probably right about the actual quality of the sex, his large belly did make maneuvering around him awkward, but there was just something about his pregnant body that aroused me so much that I didn't care. And Allen was very aware of that fact. He joked more than once that if the decision were up to my penis, he'd be spending the next several years pregnant.

Allen may not have gone on a mission in eight months and he may have been heavily pregnant, but his stamina hadn't suffered for it. It was only the size of his belly that kept him from topping me like he used to. He was every bit as limber as he had always been. And every bit as willing to spread his legs for me as he always was. A little tingling of guilt nagged at me with that thought, but I pushed it aside to focus on my naked husband.

The Moyashi had rolled over onto his hands and knees, leaning his top half against the mattress with his ass in the air. His cheeks had gotten bigger and softer over the course of his pregnancy, and the way they jiggled as he shook his hips at me was incredibly erotic. It was painfully obvious what he wanted, and I was incredibly willing to give it to him, but not without teasing him first.

His ass was practically begging to be played with sticking up in the air like that, so I reached over and grabbed the globes of flesh, squeezing and kneading them with my fingers. Allen moaned into the pillows, but even though the sound was muffled, I could tell that he wasn't enjoying this as much as I was, and that was unacceptable. So I changed positions, kneeling lower behind him so that I could reach his ass with my mouth. The moment I nipped at his skin, he shrieked, which was the exact reaction I wanted to get from him, so I continued to nip and suck until I had left a bright red hickey on the middle of his left cheek. The right received similar treatment, and by that point, his moans were more like whimpers. From there I moved lower, to the crease where his ass met his inner thigh, and before I was done with that hickey, Allen was outright begging me to take him. "Ah! ...Oh g-god! ...Yuu! Ju-just fuck me already! Please?!"

I paused briefly to make sure that he was still properly stretched from our last round before grabbing his hips for leverage and plunging into him. The tight heat of his passage felt amazing against my shaft and I took a moment to revel in it. When I finally started moving, I deliberately avoided hitting that spot that I knew would make him scream. The Moyashi was fun to tease, and I loved hearing him beg, so it wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable if I gave him what he wanted right away. It was incredibly entertaining having him constantly moving his hips around, trying to make me hit that spot while I was deliberately avoiding it; I knew exactly where it was, and even with his squirming, I wasn't going to hit it if I didn't want to.

But as much as I loved teasing him, I also loved hearing him cry out in pleasure, and hitting that spot was a guaranteed way to turn him into a writhing, gurgling mess. So when I'd gotten my fill of teasing him, I changed angles and immediately began pounding into that sensitive spot. Allen screamed, and it wasn't long at all before his mind became so muddled with pleasure that he couldn't even string two syllables together much less actually say something coherent.

It was so delicious hearing him get lost in his pleasure that I came before he did. I'd been under him enough times that my pride was no longer bothered if I came first, so long as he came too. Which he did. His whole body spasmed and shuddered the moment I began to release my load inside him.

When I pulled out of him, Allen flopped limply over onto his side, letting his white hair fall into his face. I was instantly on edge, worried about the boneless way in which he'd just collapsed, but then he turned to look at me, and the brief smile he gave me told me that he was tired and not hurt. "Can you let me rest for a little bit? The babies didn't like that last position."

"What hurts?"

He batted my hands away the second my fingers touched his bare back. "Oh no, I'm not falling for that again. You're just going to use massaging my sore muscles as an excuse to start another round. Lay down and keep your hands to yourself, pervert."

I raised an eyebrow at him in a mixture of offense and curiosity. "Is that any way to talk to your husband?"

He stuck his tongue out at me. "Of course it is, Bakanda. You're a pervert."

"Then what does that make you, wiggling your ass in the air and begging for sex?"

"I never said that I wasn't one." He let out a yawn that made his face look so innocent that it completely contradicted what he was saying. "After all, I did agree to letting this weekend be entirely about sex."

I laughed. "True."

He pouted at me, but the expression disappeared with another yawn. "Now, let me sleep for at least an hour, and then you can have your way with me again, ok?"

I laughed again. "Ok, Moyashi."

He leaned his head back against the pillows and was instantly asleep. I watched him for a moment before I decided that it was probably a good idea for me to get some sleep too. As I laid down beside him, I reached out to brush his hair out of his sleeping face, but my hand was immediately slapped away.

"No touching."

.x.x.

A wheelchair. I was in a fucking wheelchair.

My "honeymoon" had gone fine. Well, as fine as it could have gone considering that I was heavily pregnant with twins and sex was a whole lot more difficult than it used to be. The long weekend away from headquarters was a moment of tranquility in the chaos of the previous few months, but then everything went straight to hell again.

The morning following our return, I was dragged out of bed and down to the infirmary before I could even have breakfast. Without a single word in explanation, the doctors put me through an exam that went well past "thorough" and lasted at least three times as long as my usual exams. It was already mortifying because of the numerous hickeys that Yuu had left on very private places of my body during our honeymoon, but the doctors actually had the nerve to ask what had happened to my hole, and no matter how many times I said it, they refused believe that it was three days of nothing but sex that had made it so raw and stretched out.

The exam pissed me off, but not nearly as much as it did once I finally got an explanation for why they were being so much more thorough than usual. Apparently, my antics during my wedding ceremony weren't taken as hormonal annoyance but as a legitimate complaint that I was in pain, and as such, the doctors had decided that they needed to do everything they could to figure out what was causing that pain. It was completely ridiculous.

Until they showed me the x-rays.

The cracks in my ankle bones weren't just not healing as fast as they should have been, some of them were actually worse than they had been just two weeks earlier when I'd been forced back into the brace. And it was hard to argue against such obvious proof that my pregnancy was putting undue stress on my ankle. So my stubbornness caved and I finally admitted to being in constant pain whenever I was on my feet. There was a spark of triumph in Yuu's eyes at that, but he stayed quietly in his corner.

I was expecting to be ordered to try to lose weight in order to alleviate the strain on my ankle, but it turned out that I was also anemic, diabetic, and more than twenty pounds underweight. The babies were healthy, if a little small, but _I_ was definitely not. My diet was going to have to go through a complete overhaul to get me healthy before I had to give birth. But that didn't irritate me like I thought it would. After all, I was, technically, being ordered to eat more food, and that was far from being a punishment. Or maybe I was just too pissed off about other things to care.

Like the wheelchair.

In order to keep me off my feet, and therefore off my broken ankle, as much as possible, I was being confined to a wheelchair. I cussed out the doctors worse than I'd cussed out anyone in a long time, but they didn't budge. In fact, they didn't even seem to be afraid of me. I later realized that that was because they were more scared of my overprotective husband than they were of me, but at the time, it just pissed me off more that they weren't scared enough to cave to my demands.

At least the doctors all agreed that I could tell everyone that the wheelchair was just a precaution. My health problems were nobody's business but my own, and nobody needed to know about them; especially not while the others were all still being overbearing about trying to get themselves back in my good graces. It was going to be obnoxious enough lying and telling them that the doctors were simply worried that I was going to fall and hurt myself, so there was no way in hell that I was actually going to tell them that the wheelchair was medically necessary. But even Yuu agreed with me on that, so even though I knew he was going to drive me crazy with making sure that I was actually using the wheelchair like I was supposed to, I could at least be grateful that he wasn't going to nag me about it in public.

Being confined to a wheelchair was every bit as humiliating as I thought it would be. Especially in those first few days while I was still figuring out how to get around on my own without needing to have someone push me. I did not like feeling helpless like that. Losing the freedom to move around hurt more than just my pride; I felt trapped. The lack of mobility made me feel like a sitting duck, just waiting around for an enemy attack, and that made me incredibly jumpy. Everyone learned really quickly not to sneak up on me while I was in the wheelchair.

And as horrible as it sounded, I was immensely thankful that Cross had dislocated Teidoll's shoulder. The man clearly had no interest in leaving headquarters, at least, not while I was still pregnant, so he remained just as much of an annoyance as all the others. But at least with his arm in a sling, he couldn't physically push me around like the others could. And that in turn meant that I could actually escape from him when I needed to. Though threatening to tell Cross that he was annoying me was also a very effective way to get him to leave me alone.

The only silver lining was that I was still allowed to walk short distances, though that was with the caveat that "short" meant "nothing longer than the distance from the bed to the toilet". And if my next exam revealed that I was abusing that small freedom, then it would not only be taken away, but Yuu would have permission to tell Lenalee the true reasons why I was in a wheelchair. Because while I may have been upset with her over how she acted during the whole prostitution thing, I was still beyond terrified of what Lenalee would do to me if she found out why I was really in the wheelchair. Especially while she was still being so completely overbearing with her friendship towards me.

On the other hand, maybe the wheelchair was a scapegoat, something for me to be angry at so that I wouldn't have to think about that other thing the doctors had discovered during my exam:

I had a birth canal.

It wasn't open yet, but that was going to change in the next few days. Rather than cutting me open like we had planned, my body was capable of birthing my babies naturally. I was actually going to be able to deliver my twins like a woman would.

And that was absolutely terrifying.

Everything I had ever read or heard on the subject said that childbirth was the most painful experience that a woman could endure. I had lived through a lot of painful things before, some of which - such as having a tease eat a hole through my heart or getting stabbed in the stomach by my boyfriend's Innocence - were actually potentially more painful than childbirth, but I didn't doubt that childbirth would be the worse experience. I was male. My body wasn't built for carrying and delivering babies. And if women, whose bodies _were_ built for that, could barely do it, then how on earth was I supposed to do it?

The doctors repeatedly assured me that a natural birth was monumentally safer than an experimental surgery, but that did little to ease my nerves. I couldn't be sure that they weren't just saying that to calm me down. After all, they had been saying for months now that my ankle was recovering just fine, but it turned out that they were lying to avoid stressing me out, so why was this any different?

Ok, sure, I was partially at fault for that for refusing to admit that I was in pain, but maybe if they hadn't been telling me that my ankle was fine, I wouldn't have felt the need to lie and act like it was fine even though I knew it wasn't.

All I really knew was that childbirth was going to suck.

I loved Naomi and Kaya though, and if giving birth naturally was what was best for my daughters, I would do it. Then again, it's not like I had a choice. I couldn't stay pregnant, so I would have to give birth. There was nothing I could do about it.

So instead of dwelling on it, I channeled all my fear into anger towards the wheelchair. That obnoxious metal contraption was making my life incredibly difficult and I was stuck in it for the foreseeable future. It deserved all the anger that I threw at it.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: This flashback takes place when Allen is on the run from the Order. So obviously, this is where this story deviates from the original cannon story. It'll cover some of the stuff with Alma, focusing on Allen and Kanda's relationship, and hopefully explain the situation with Neah. Also, there won't be a lemon in this flashback. Sorry. But you just got one last chapter, so I'm not too sorry.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

~Three Years Earlier~

I felt horrible. There was no other word to describe it. I had made my choices, and my Moyashi had been the one to suffer for it. He was paying for my mistakes. It was too late now, but maybe I really should have trusted him with my past. Maybe we wouldn't be in this mess if I had just told him about Alma and the Second Exorcist Project one of the many times he had asked. Maybe things would have turned out differently if he had known the truth beforehand. Maybe I wouldn't have stabbed him and awoken the Noah inside him. Maybe he wouldn't have ended up arrested and imprisoned.

But dwelling on what-if's wasn't going to help me find him now.

The only way to ease my guilt was to find him so that I could apologize to him. He needed to know that I still loved him. That finding the woman I had been looking for didn't change the way I felt about him. In fact, after being confronted with the love of my past life, I think I loved the Moyashi even more. I needed him back. And that meant finding him first.

It irritated me that he had run off instead of waiting for me to come back, but I was certain that the Order wasn't telling me the whole story behind his disappearance, and the bits and pieces I had gotten from Lenalee confirmed that suspicion. So I didn't blame him for running away when they had locked him up like a criminal. I blamed myself for putting him in that situation in the first place.

Finding the Moyashi turned out to be every bit as much of a pain as I had anticipated it would be. Allen was Cross' apprentice; he knew how to disappear. Even with Johnny's help, it took much longer to track him down than I would have liked. And of course, once we did find him, he put up a huge fight and ran away. This was going to be a hell of a lot harder than I thought.

.x.x.

I was heartbroken. There was no other word to describe it. Of all the things I could have felt after learning that the man I loved was the result of human experimentation - anger, confusion, betrayal - a sense of loss overwhelmed them all. I had thought that, unlike everyone else in my life, Kanda was actually mine to keep; he had even wanted to have children with me someday. But instead, it turned out that he had lived a whole other life before dying and being brought back as the man I loved. He didn't just have a life without me, he had a life with a woman he loved, and now she was back. My heart was in pieces. Over both my own loss and theirs.

With everything that was going on, Yuu was obviously not thinking clearly - otherwise he never would have hurt me, much less stabbed me with his Innocence. So I would have to be the one to be level-headed. I would be gracious and bow out. My, now-former, lover deserved a peaceful end with the woman he loved, and I could give them that. So when he asked, I didn't hesitate. I opened the ark and let him go.

What happened after that is a bit of a blur. There was some nonsense about the Fourteenth awakening and me committing treason, and I found myself locked up in a cell without proper food or even medical attention for my wounds. But I didn't care. I had lost the love of my life, and it was taking everything in my power to not let myself be swallowed up by my grief. The charges against me were something to fight, a reason to go on with my life. And I would do that. Yuu had always made it very clear that he hated my tendency to play the martyr, so even though he was no longer mine, I would show him that I could change. I would survive this.

So when the opportunity to escape arose, I took it. The Order thought I was a threat, and while I was grateful to Tyki and Road for their help, I could never align myself with the Noah family, so I would go my own way. I was alone and that was the way it was meant to be.

I was not expecting to get found by an exorcist. Apocryphos and the akuma could find me easily enough if I spent too long in one place, but the finders and exorcists were always easy to evade. I cursed myself for being so inattentive, but that was when I noticed something far more important. It wasn't just any exorcist that had found me. It was Kanda. He was alive and back with the Order.

I was happy to see him looking so healthy, and frustrated that he had rejoined the Order after everything they'd done to him, but more than anything, I felt my heart breaking. The attempts that I had made to put the pieces back together were rendered useless as the shards crumbled back to the floor. It took everything I had not to break down in tears at seeing the man who was no longer mine.

I wanted to throw myself into his arms, but I knew that I couldn't. Aside from the fact that we were in public, he wasn't mine to hold anymore. There was also the very critical detail of him being in his exorcist uniform. He was with the Order, so he was there to bring me back, and I couldn't let that happen.

But despite my attempts, I couldn't escape from him and I found myself cornered yet again. And while I was normally on the same level as Kanda, I was weakened from all the fighting and running I'd done in the last few weeks, so if this came to a fight, I wasn't so sure that I would stand a chance against him. Fighting off the Noah inside me was really doing a number on me, and my broken heart definitely wasn't helping with that. So instead, I found myself pitifully begging Kanda to let me go. "Please. Just let me go. I can't go back there..."

The words were pathetic and desperate, but they made Kanda pause. The look he gave me was strange. "Who said anything about going back?"

I couldn't tell if he was genuinely confused or if he was trying to trick me. But then Johnny tugged on his sleeve and whispered something in his ear. I was briefly jealous of their proximity, but my attention was recalled to the current situation when understanding lit up Kanda's face. "Oh. You think I'm with the Order."

The comment made me scowl, and I practically spit my response at him. "Aren't you? You're wearing your jacket and you have your sword back."

He clicked his tongue at me, instantly back to his usual, easily annoyed self. I didn't know what to make of the sudden change in his demeanor. "I went back because I thought that's where _you_ were, moron. I was looking for you."

The answer caught me off guard, and before I knew it, he was in my personal space. I flinched away but found that I couldn't escape. Only, instead of restraining me like I expected, Kanda kissed me. We had kissed many times before, but this one was really strange and I didn't know what to make of it. As he spoke, Kanda brushed my hair behind my ear in that loving way he always used to do. "There's lots of things I need to say to you, but let's start with: I'm sorry."

The apology confused me even more than the kiss did. "You're sorry? What do you have to be sorry for?"

The raw emotion on Kanda's face was stunning. If we were still together, it would have been wonderful seeing him open up like that, but now, it just hurt. "I'm the reason you're in this mess. I love you, yet when my past came back to haunt me, you were the one to suffer for it. I hurt you, emotionally and physically, and then I left you behind to deal with the fallout alone."

The words confused me greatly. I didn't understand why he would be apologizing to me like that or why he was claiming to still be in love with me. Trying not to cry, I buried my face in his chest, unable to actually face him while I asked him a question whose answer was sure to contradict everything he'd just said. "What about _Alma_?"

"What _about_ Alma?" I looked up when he repeated my question, only to find that the only emotion on his face was confusion; he genuinely didn't understand why that was important. "I got my closure, and now I can move on. With you. The real love of my life. We can be together and there's no one left to get in our way."

The tears fell. Softly at first, but it was only a matter of seconds before I was sobbing in Yuu's arms. He was still mine. I hadn't lost him.

He snickered as he wrapped his arms around me. "Che. Baka Moyashi. Did you really think that you had lost me?"

I elbowed him for the comment, but instead of laughing at his attempt to tease me, I found myself collapsing in pain. But I wasn't alone anymore. Before I could hit the ground, Yuu had me in his arms, lifting me up and holding me close to him. The concern on his face was oddly comforting, so I let myself pass out. I had my lover back, so it was time to face Neah directly and tell him that he couldn't have my body.

.x.x.

The little idiot actually thought that I had left him over this, that finding my previous lover had somehow erased the two years he and I had shared together. I wanted to be offended by his lack of trust in me, but it was my own refusal to share things from my past with him that had made him think that, so it was all technically my fault. But he'd been set straight now, and he had no problems with taking me back, so at least he didn't think we were broken up because he didn't want to be with me anymore.

Of course, once I finally got him set straight, he immediately passed out. I wasn't too worried at first. The Moyashi looked horrendously exhausted, like he hadn't slept since he left the Order - he probably hadn't had a decent meal since then either. So I chalked the collapse up to him not taking care of himself.

But then his skin started turning gray.

His breathing grew shallow as he curled in on himself, obviously in pain, and that terrified me. The Moyashi wasn't simply neglecting his health; the Fourteenth was trying to take over. There were a lot of things I felt in that moment - worry over the fact that Allen hadn't beaten him off yet, guilt for stabbing him and awakening the Noah in the first place, and annoyance at myself for falling for Allen so hard that I was actually having to deal with multiple emotions - but panic topped the list. I didn't know what to do next, how to help my Moyashi, or if it was even possible to help him.

Fortunately for my pride, Johnny was the only witness to my out of character reaction, and he didn't even notice it. When presented with something new and unusual, he jumped straight into curious scientist mode, and while that had been incredibly annoying in the last few weeks, it was actually helpful now. He babbled a few things about noahfication that I didn't understand before taking control of the situation. "Are you ok carrying him or do I need to go find an inn and then come back for you?"

"I've got him. Lead the way."

We found an inn relatively easily, and though the innkeeper was irritatingly interested in the unconscious Moyashi's health, she did give us a discount on the room because he was sick.

We got Allen settled on the bed, and then came the hard part: waiting. There was absolutely nothing I could do to help him, and that was terrifying. Johnny did some first aid type things to keep him from actually getting sick, but I was completely useless. All I could do was sit there and wait.

I couldn't even wait in silence like I wanted though, because when Johnny was nervous, he talked, and I apparently made him very nervous because he wouldn't shut up around me. "I'm curious. I couldn't hear what you were saying to him earlier, but how did you know that kissing him would make him listen to you? And why would you even choose to do that in the first place?"

I shrugged. When I had kissed the Moyashi, I had forgotten that Johnny was there, and it seemed like that was coming back to bite me. But on the other hand, Johnny clearly wasn't going anywhere, so maybe it would be a good thing if he knew that Allen and I were in a relationship. "Kissing him has always been an effective way to calm him down."

"Oh. Alright." He nodded once, but then his whole body froze. "...Wait. No. That's not alright. How on earth do you know that? Have you actually kissed him before?"

Johnny continued to babble, but before I could think of anything to say in my defense or to throw him off track, he figured it out. "It's more than just kissing, isn't it? You two have slept together. That's why you really came back, isn't it? To be with him." He suddenly turned into an excited little kid and latched onto my arm. "Have you told him you love him?"

I scowled in embarrassment and shoved him out of my personal space. "Of course I have. Don't be stupid."

The rough response didn't faze Johnny, though he did refrain from touching me again. His grin only got brighter as he sat down beside the bed. "Good. He's going to make it through this. He has something to fight for."

I wished I could share his optimism. I desperately hoped that I meant enough to Allen that he would fight for our relationship, but I had to be realistic. He was fighting a Noah for control of his own body. That wasn't a fight he could win just by declaring that he had things to live for. There was also the brat's martyr complex to consider. It was entirely possible that he didn't even realize that he had things to live for.

Not knowing what to say in response, I put an end to the conversation. "He's going to be hungry when he wakes up. We should probably get him some food."

Johnny didn't even protest the change in subject. He was immediately on his feet and headed towards the door. "On it!"

I sighed in relief at the silence that followed his absence, but then I turned my focus back on the unconscious Moyashi. He looked so frail and small, and it made my heart ache. I once again found myself desperately wishing that I could do something - anything - to help him.

It was about ten minutes later when Allen finally woke up. But even though his skin was pale and his eyes were silver, I knew it wasn't him. His aura was all wrong. That was the Fourteenth Noah sitting on the bed.

My reaction was immediate. Mugen was drawn and placed against his neck in less time than it took to blink. But I didn't know what to do from there. My training screamed at me to kill the Noah in front of me, but that Noah was in my lover's body. I couldn't kill him without killing Allen, and I couldn't kill Allen. At least, not until I was one hundred percent certain that my Moyashi was no longer in there; if there was any chance at all that he was still alive, I had to hope for it.

The Fourteenth didn't even bat an eye at the blade against his throat. In fact, he seemed to be annoyed rather than scared. "Can you put that away so that we can have a civil conversation?"

It was weird that he wanted to talk to me, but I didn't want to talk to him. "I can't do that. I'm-"

"I know who you are. The kid is an open book to me, so I know exactly how many times you've fucked him in the ass." I was so stunned by the comment that he was able to push Mugen away from his throat quite easily. And his next words made the blade fall uselessly to the ground. "I even know how many times he's come in _your_ ass. So unless you want that information to become public, drop the sword and listen to what I have to say, ok?"

I'd learn later that Neah was just toying with me and didn't actually know all the details of my sex life like he claimed, but at the time, it was a very effective way to manipulate me into actually listening to him.

He smirked at the look on my face. While normally an attractive expression on the Moyashi, this was just wrong. "Look, just promise me that you won't touch him for the next few weeks. I don't think either of us want me to wake up and find myself in the middle of one of your love-making sessions."

My disbelief helped me find my tongue. "Really? That's _all_ you want? For us not to have sex?"

He nodded. "From _you_ , yes, that's all I want. I'll need a bit more than that from Allen while I'm stuck in his body, but once I'm free, you'll be free to fuck him to your heart's content once more."

I wanted to question him about that, to find out if he truly meant to imply that he was going to give the Moyashi back to me, but before I could get a single syllable out, Neah was gone. That dark aura vanished and Allen's body collapsed on the bed, once again unconscious. I didn't know what to make of the conversation that had just happened, but the Fourteenth _had_ made a very good point about abstaining from sex. I definitely did not want to end up sleeping with _him_ instead of my Moyashi.

.x.x.

I was getting really sick of seeing that eerie lake and the even creepier forest that surrounded it, but if everything went according to plan, this would be the last time that I would have to come here. Neah was standing right beside me, so I immediately faced him and started listing out my demands. "Look. I'm not-"

He cut me off before I could finish a single sentence, and weirder than that, he actually looked relieved to have me face him outright. "Good. You're here of your own free will. That means you're finally ready to listen to me."

I blinked at the comment. "Why would I-?"

"Because I don't want your body."

That was definitely not what I was expecting him to say. "What?!"

He smirked knowingly at me. "Are you ready to listen now?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to not say anything stupid. If Neah truly didn't want to take over my body, I desperately needed to know what it was he was really after.


End file.
